The Curious Cases of Baker Street
by Cmdr's Monkey
Summary: A place to keep my collection of one-shots and drabbles written by me and mostly in response to prompts and whatever fancies my interest. Consists characters from both Canon and movies. Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Irene Adler, Moriarty, etc. No slash
1. Stagnation

_Disclaimer: Don't own Sherlock Holmes. Wish I did though._

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**Stagnation**_  
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"My mind rebels against stagnation," I muttered disdainfully to my colleague and friend while I sat lazily in an armchair, pipe in mouth and the remnants of the Turkish tobacco wafting around my head in blue concentric circles.

"Then do a puzzle, Holmes," Watson replied nonchalantly. My gaze diverted to him. Oh how easy was it for him to say that. _He_ didn't have to search hard and wide for something to distract his plebian mind. There he was busily scribbling in his journal the details of our last case from two weeks ago and here I am wasting away my mind, staring blankly at the initials of our beloved monarch.

"No, _puzzle_, on this earth whatsoever can give me the stimulation I need, Watson," I scoffed haughtily. "Murder! Theft! Conspiracy! I need those, my dear fellow! Why must the criminal world cease their activities at this time of the year?" That time of year being the winter season where not even the lowest dregs of life would dare face the cold, biting breath of Father Winter.

I heard my friend stop with his pen and set it down. I knew he had lifted his gaze from the pages to look up at me and his sigh of exasperation told me well enough that he had come up with something that would occupy my time for this night at least. Our ritual conversation was imminent.

"Dinner, Holmes?"

"Sounds intriguing."

"Simpsons?"

"Delightful."

"Good." I heard Watson shuffle his note papers and replace them back into his case folder before he spoke again; waiting to hear what ungodly thing he was going to make me do this night just so we could have dinner together as two friends. "Be sure to shave, Holmes."

"You shave." I quipped smartly.

"Holmes."

"Watson."

I knew he was wearing that infectious grin of his and soon I felt it creeping across my own face. Yes. My Boswell knew very well how to get me out of my doldrums even if it is for just one night.


	2. Framed

_This was inspired by a very bizarre dream that has left me wondering if my father had sneaked crack into my dinner last night. Lol_

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**Framed**

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes," said the neatly trimmed Lord Justice that stood at the head of the courtroom as he stared down at me with a disapproving and disappointing look. I swore I could see a sympathetic glint in his eye as he carried on my sentencing for a crime I had not committed but otherwise had been convicted by a jury of my peers. _His_ influence was all over the case and there was very little I could do to thwart him. "You have been sentenced to banishment for the horrendous murder of a prestigious scholar of Durham and the conspiracy to incriminate another for said horrendous crime. Do you have any final words?"

"You have seen but you have not observed." I replied fearlessly and the constables assigned to my charge began to escort me away to prepare for my final moments on Earth. My gaze met those of my friend and colleague, Dr John Watson, and he gave me an apologetic look for his failure to gain my freedom. I did not fault him and said as much to him as we came close enough to give parting words. He swore he would find a way to get me back and despite my attempts to discourage him from doing so, I knew he would try anyway.

He would try until it killed him such was the loyalty of my friend.

The vessel that would ferry me to my new home and existence loomed in the distance and as I drew closer in the floating Maria, I could feel the dread and despair that so many others like before me had felt, creep its way up from my stomach and into my chest and throat. _He_ had won despite being on another planet, far away.

Despite being exiled himself.

The Wastelands awaited me as much as it had awaited him when I had left him to die all those years ago. Perhaps in a way I was in fact guilty for the murder of Professor James Moriarty.


	3. Intuition

**Intuition**

"Mister Holmes!" I had called the name of the despicable looking wretch that stood dazed against the wall and in my fisted hands as I held him there. The smell of the burning wharf wafted around us both and I tried my best to ignore the stench of burnt flesh. "We have a warrant for your arrest." I knew what I was doing could land me in jail alongside the detective whom I respected and tried my damndest to follow his example in investigations. But my gut instinct was telling me that Sherlock Holmes could not have committed the crime in which he was being accused of. I _knew_ he hadn't committed it even though I had no evidence to prove his innocence. Holmes may have scoffed at the thought of instincts leading an investigation, but I knew when to listen to it and it was telling me now to get him out of here before the rest of the constables found him.

He must not have heard me when I told him for he still stared at me in confusion and loss. I shoved him a bit harder against the wall to knock some sense back into him and he started. "Mister Holmes. Lord Coward has issued a warrant for your arrest, sir!"

The detective said nothing as his gaze darted around a bit and fell on me. He then stood straighter and looked back at the wharf as the thought of his friend's fate came to him. I knew what he was thinking before he could voice his concern. I held him against the wall again to keep him from going to Watson's aide. "Watson is alive. Just get out of here, sir. Just go!"

I watched him stumble and run before disappearing around a corner and into the night. I knew the others would not find him unless he wanted to be found. At least I hoped that was the case. The sound of charred would breaking underneath someone's feet brought my attention to another problem I had to face. I had to now lie to my superior and respected colleague.

But the lie never came for I could easily tell that he knew what I had done. He may not have been as brilliant as the detective whom I just helped escape from the clutches of the law, but he was intelligent enough in his own way and knew when someone he trusted had done something he would have disapproved of.

I am just glad that he also held a similar intuition about the issued warrant and accusation, else wise I would be going home to my wife and explaining to her how I lost my job for a detective who constantly jabbed at my colleagues' lack of intellect or sitting in jail with the rest of the scum and villainy of London.

"Is he gone?" the Inspector asked of me and I sighed heavily, nodding in confirmation. "Then let us hope he solves this case before we find him, Clarke."


	4. An Interview with a Mastermind

_This was randomly created for sherlocklulz community while using the Ask Professor Moriarty eight-ball located here: _http: // www. sherlockpeoria. net/Miscellaney/AskProfessorMoriarty. php4_ (no spaces). The final line for Moriarty was a glitch in the generator that ended up being a "blank" answer in which I could not pass up on._

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**An Interview with a Mastermind**

**Barbossa's Monkey**: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Professor.

**Moriarty**: Well, well. It seems a pity, but I have done what I could.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: So, first question. You will die. What do you have to say about that?

**Moriarty**: All that I have to say has already crossed your mind.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: Right. Is it true that you have an unhealthy interest in Sherlock Holmes?

**Moriarty**: It has been an intellectual treat to me to see the way in which you have grappled with this affair, and I say, unaffectedly, that it would be a grief to me to be forced to take any extreme measure.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: So then you do admit that your interest in Holmes is not purely business between a criminal mastermind and a great detective, but in fact on a more intimate level?

**Moriarty**: The situation is becoming an impossible one.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: I think we're agreed then. You're essentially gay.

**Moriarty**: It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one's dressing-gown.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: Mister Holmes! Please! For the sake of our readers, stop playing with whatever is in your pants!

**Moriarty**: You hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: I am not really a violent person, sir, but if you and Mister Holmes do not stop with the foreplay, I may be forced to use more extreme measures.

**Moriarty**: You must drop it. You really must, you know.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: And if I don't?

**Moriarty**: You have worked things in such a fashion that we have only one resource left.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: Erm... and that would be?

**Moriarty**: Tut, tut! I am quite sure that a person of your intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair.

**Barbossa's Monkey**: No, Professor! I will not participate in this... this... despicable act!

**Moriarty**: ...

**Barbossa's Monkey**: Oh thank God, Doctor Watson! He is a most horrid, horri....

**Watson**: It is Doctor John Motherfucking Watson to you, bitch! Holmes! Let's go before that bitch, Moran, puts one between your motherfucking eyes!

And thus concludes my interview with Moriarty. Whew! Thank god for Watson saving the day!


	5. Gladstone

_This is from the same story-arc as "Framed". Decided to show what level of technology that "verse" is at. Also thought that if Holmes lived in such a verse, that he would have picked up this kind of hobby at a young age and applied it to this profession every now and then when the need arose._

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**Gladstone**

He had spent all night, every night for a week working on his latest creation ever since his best friend had scorned him for his hobby after the last clockwork he had created had inadvertently given them away to the villains and thus resulted in them running for their lives. He wanted to make it up to Watson and prove to the man that not all of his machines were failures or screw-ups. So he had locked himself away in his rooms for a week, only appearing once or twice to take the tray of food that Mrs. Hudson would lay at his door for him. He had ignored clients, letters and grams and even had Lestrade turned away. Not even the Queen herself nor the return of the Mad Techno could probably have him roused from his rooms.

He wanted this clockwork to be perfect. He wanted it to be without flaws and lifelike as possible so that Watson could not find a reason to complain or find a fault with it. He had spent a month before deliberating on what exactly he should build this time that would please his friend, his colleague and scribe. It was no easy task and one he had not come to a decision on until he had accidentally come across the solution on a return walk to Baker Street one morning. As soon as he knew it was exactly what he wanted to build and that Watson would like it, he had raced home and thus was not seen again for a week after.

Now he was finished and all that was left was to show it to his friend.

He stood in the man's bedroom, staring at his sleeping form. Watson would not be pleased with him for choosing such a late hour to show him his latest creation, but he could not wait. He had to know _now_ if his project was a success or not. Failure, he knew, would leave him deflated and return to the drawing board and try again. So it was imperative that Watson liked his creation.

Like a child eager to be granted approval and praise for something he did, Sherlock Holmes set the clockwork on Watson's sleeping form. It was not heavy. He had made sure to use the lightest but sturdiest metals and fabrics known to man for this project. The copper and steel colored mechanical lay on his friend's chest, unmoving and lifeless until he reached out and pressed a switch hidden at the base of the creation's neck.

With a whir of gizmos and gears, it slowly came to life and gave a very dog like yawn as it stretched its four legs and heavy-set body before shaking its head. The clockwork looked up at his maker curiously and Holmes gestured to his friend and softly commanded, "Give Watson a good morning greeting, Gladstone."

The clockwork tilted his head before returning its photo-lens eyes back on the human it was standing on. Watson stirred a little as the mechanical stepped forward and his eyes suddenly snapped open when something cold pressed against his face repeatedly and barked in his ear happily. The stub of a tail on his hindquarters jerked back and forth in excitement and Holmes stood back out of sight to watch his friend's reaction to the clockwork.

Watson stared flabbergasted at the machine as it in turn stared curiously at him. "What in the name of…" he said speechlessly. The clockwork climbed off of the doctor and sniffed around his bed before curling up into a ball and resting against the man's leg. Holmes watched in amusement as Watson sat up and reached out for the clockwork tentatively, knowing fully well where it had come from and what was a likely outcome with these machinations. The dog, a bulldog in appearance, looked up at him before leaning his head into Watson's hand, much to the doctor's surprise.

"Holmes?" his friend called to him and looked around the room until he spotted the shadow of his tall and lean friend.

"Do you like him?" Holmes asked as he stepped out of the shadows and lit an oil lamp nearby. He tried to hide his excitement and giddiness in the hope that his friend approved. "I've programmed him to be loyal and lazy like all house dogs should be, so he won't be a nuisance or get us into trouble with the villains."

Watson stared at the clockwork again for several moments before returning his gaze back to his flat mate. "He won't chase Mrs. Agna's cat will he?"

The detective smiled in amusement, remembering how his clockwork sparrow had aggravated the neighbor's cat to the point that he had to catch and dismantle the machine before Mrs. Agna had the Bobbies on them both. He shook his head in reply, "No, my dear fellow. Gladstone has no interests in cats or any other vermin. He's solely designed to keep your feet warm and annoy any intruders snooping about our rooms when we're not here. He's a loyal companion and guard dog."

He caught Watson's smile and watched as the doctor beckoned the mechanical to him and Gladstone gladly complied. "He seems harmless enough. I think this time, old chap, you've outdone yourself."

Holmes beamed inside, pleased that he had succeeded with the clockwork. "I'm glad you like him," he said before stifling a yawn and bidding his friend good night. He left Gladstone with him so the two could get acquainted. Just when he was about to climb into his own bed, he heard an exclamation from his friend down the hall.

"Holmes! He's eating my slippers!"

Perhaps he had made the dog a little too lifelike.


	6. Baffled

**Baffled**

In all my years associated with my good friend, Sherlock Holmes, never once have I ever seen him look as baffled as he has now before a very smug and pleased Inspector Lestrade. What had started out as a pretty little problem involving a Lord and a murdered maid had quickly escalated into a complex conspiracy that had left my friend wracking at his mind, playing the violin at awful hours in the night, and smoking an ounce of his Turkish tobacco so that by the next morning we were both choking on the stale air in our sitting room.

When Lestrade called upon us that morning, announcing that he had solved the case, Holmes had scoffed at such a claim. "T'was no murder, Mister Holmes," the Yarder had explained when prompted by my friend. "After you had left, I had gotten to thinkin' that it was a pretty simple problem like Doctor Watson had said it appeared to be. Except, we all were barkin' up the wrong tree, we were."

"If it was not murder, then pray tell how the maid came about her untimely demise?" said my friend in a most annoyed tone.

"The dog did it, Mister Holmes." Lestrade answered and I could see the smug expression cross his face as he noticed Holmes' expression falter at the revelation. "You see, sir, after you left the ugliest little thing came running into the room and started runnin' about our legs that made it quite difficult to walk without trippin' over it, sir. So I started thinkin' that perhaps what had become of the maid was an unfortunate accident. That… the dog had done the very same thing to her and she tripped over him, dropped the tray of food and dishes and impaled herself on the dinner knife."

"Surely it cannot be _that_ simple," my friend said in disbelief but I saw he was frowning as he considered the possibility. "What evidence do you have to support that theory besides the dog's behavior?"

"Well, sir, the Lord said that the dog often did that to the maid whenever she carried a tray of food and that the maid often complained that the dog would be the death of her when he finally did trip her." Lestrade answered and then held up a hand to hold off my friends retort. "There was also the matter of the dog whining when his master picked him up. Further inspection showed that the dog had been grievously bruised by something hitting and landing on it. Tis a wonder the animal hadn't broken anything. Does that satisfy you, Mister Holmes?"

My friend did not answer the Inspector for he was too busy staring at the little man in bafflement.

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_Thought that it was time Lestrade got one up on Holmes._

_And I agree with the maid, hyper dogs will be the death of you if they get in the way of your feet! I have four and its only a miracle I haven't died by one yet. Lol  
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	7. Anguish

_Forgive me if this does not fit in with Canon. I haven't read A Sign of Four, I think this is where it comes from, in some time so I'm not sure how, where or when Watson heard about his brother's death and how he handled it._

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**Anguish**

Sherlock Holmes knew physical pain very clearly. He's had broken fingers, fractured ribs, blistered skin, punctured flesh and dislocated limbs multiple times throughout his life and career as a consulting detective. He even knew what to recognize in others and how to handle it when his associate and friend, Watson, was in physical pain. However he was quite unfamiliar with emotional pain either from himself or from others. He was uncertain how to deal with his own and had eventually learned to clamp onto it and shove it to the back of his mind to never deal with it at all ever again. But the same could not be applied to others and he was left in an awkward situation far too often with his clients in which he had to rely on his Boswell to handle for him.

Until it was Watson's turn to feel the same anguish of grief that he had seen far too often in his clients. Sherlock Holmes had not known what to do when news of his friend's brother's death had reached him. Watson had been strong in the presence of others and held in the grief but he could see that the man was hurting and so when they finally were alone in their private rooms for the night, Holmes could hear through the paper thin walls his friend grieving and that left him disconcerted. How does one help another grieve when yourself had bottled up the very same emotions and locked them away?

He did not know and for that he felt ashamed that he could not help his friend endure the emotional storm. He felt another emotion, one he hadn't felt in a long time and although not on the same scale as those he had bottled away, he still felt a pang of anguish at his own inability to be a friend and listening to his friend grieving for a lost brother. He was certain he was a cold-hearted cad in Watson's own mind for not showing an inkling of concern for that's precisely how the doctor had described him in his stories, although with more romantic and tactful wording.

Before Sherlock Holmes knew it, his long legs were guiding him out of his own room and quietly into the next. His companion was sitting on the small bed with his back to the door and a crumpled sheet of paper in between his hands while his shoulders shook with the grief he felt over his loss. Watson had not heard him come in and for that Holmes was a little grateful in avoiding the awkwardness that surely would have followed if he had been heard. Holmes stood at the door for what felt like an eternity, watching his friend before his legs brought him over to the man's side.

Watson straightened, startled slightly from when his hand rested on the doctor's shoulder in the hopes that a familiar touch would be reassuring. Holmes shook his head to silence the doctor's apologies for his inability to control and hide his own emotions and sat down beside his friend, his hand still on the man's shoulder. "Watson, my dear fellow, there is only enough room for one Sherlock Holmes." The reassuring smile he gave the former soldier was enough to bring about his own smile and his friend reached up to clasp the brotherly hand still resting on his shoulder.

"Holmes, you are many things," said the doctor, "but you are most certainly not a cold-hearted and calculating machine like I've described you." The detective laughed and the doctor smiled warmly at the sound. Sherlock Holmes may not have known how to help his friend deal with his loss and in his ignorance, he realized, he had managed perfectly fine.

The pain would still be there, but so would he.


	8. Contest

_This originally was going to be just a macho type drabble to show off Holmes, but then it took a life of its own when Watson whispered in my ear. :D_

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**Contest**

The pub was bawdy and raucous to the ears and every patron inside crowded each other so that there was no sense of personal space to be had. A gathering of men around a single table shouted and beer sloshed from their stained mugs as they cheered on the two men sitting at said table, locked in a contest of strength and will at the hands, their free ones holding onto the wooden table for leverage. On one side was a tall and thin man with dark hair and determined gray eyes that smiled mockingly at his opponent. The only sign of concentration was a slight crease at the corner of his lips. The man he faced was much bigger than he, not in the terms of height but muscle and he grinned wickedly from a scar puckered and red bearded face and determined dark eyes. He had no hair on his clean scalp and the sweat that perspired on the skin gave it a shine akin to a shoe shiner that knows his trade.

The lesser muscled man smirked and reached for the glass of beer and took a long draught while his muscle strained arm held his bigger opponent in place. "I thought this was a contest, old chap?" he said arrogantly and his opponent snarled in reply. Force was applied to the arms and the crowd gathered around them grew louder as the taller man's arm began to bend backwards against his will.

"Holmes, stop toying with him. I want my money," his companion said from behind him. Holmes simply rolled his eyes.

"All in good time, Watson," he answered and watched as his arm slowly descended toward the table but then suddenly stopped just inches from the beer stained wood. He gave his opponent a grin and much to the man's surprise, began to slowly bring their arms back to the center and away from the table.

As their arms travelled upward once more, Holmes spoke nonchalantly to his companion as if they were merely discussing the weather and he wasn't busy arm wrestling. "Tell me, old boy, I've noticed that your activities as of late have become rather… peculiar, almost sinister even. I take it you've found an interest outside of our cases?"

"Yes," Watson answered while he watched Holmes bring his opponent's arm toward the table, but 'Muscles' wasn't about to give up and lose to his friend so easily as evident by the sudden discovery of strength that was bringing the arms back again. "You remember Miss Mary Morstan from _The Sign of Four_ case, right?"

Holmes smirked ever so lightly as he checked Muscles. "Ah the delectable Miss Morstan, how could I forget? You've been seeing her I take it?"

"Yes, Holmes, for the last year," Watson answered a bit in frustration. There are times he could not understand how a man like Holmes could notice everything and yet nothing at all.

"Ah that explains a lot." Holmes narrowed his eyes as his opponent strained against his arm and he found himself having to actually put some serious effort to keep himself from losing.

"I intend to marry her, Holmes."

"What?!" Holmes arm came down hard and suddenly against the wooden table.

There went this weeks rent.


	9. Hope

_Decided to simply call this the Steampunk Arc due to the fact that the technology is on that level, but with space capabilities. Think of... Treasure Planet crossed with Steampunk. Anyway, here is a look into Holmes time in The Wastelands. The next drabble of this arc will have another look into Steampunk Victoria London. Oh and you all will be getting two drabbles today to tide you over until I get back from my grandmothers funeral in California.  
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**Hope**

The glaring sun and the oppressive heat were intolerable. I had been wandering the empty wastelands for the last three days with only a loaf of bread and a flask of water at my disposal, both of which had been given to me by the Interstellar Police (Interpol as they're commonly called) upon my arrival to this wretched and godforsaken place. The only other objects I had to my name were my clothes on my back and the silk chute and pack that had delivered me safely to the surface from the mis-matched scrap of a shuttle. To say I had not been terrified of the jump would have been an understatement of the century.

I had an unhealthy fear of heights and being pushed out of a fast moving vessel had helped attribute to that fear. So too did landing on the edge of a cliff and to have the sandy wind catch at my chute to nearly send me over the edge and into the bottomless pit below. If I had not been able to latch onto the uneven ground via a jutting rock, I would not be wandering The Wastelands to this day. Instead I suspected I would have become the luncheon of the day for the skittering, furry lizards that inhabited this planet.

The shadows that I occasionally caught glimpses of were of the very same creatures that followed me now as I wandered aimlessly through the desert sands in search of shelter, food and water.

I was tired and thirsty and I wanted nothing more than to return to my Baker Street home and partake in Mrs. Hudson's fine tea and smoke my pipe and listen to my friend talk about whatever meaningless subject currently interested his mind at the time. Oh what I would give to go back to that life! But it was a life lost to me now unless I somehow managed to manifest an interstellar ship out of the sand and fly myself back home. The chances of that happening were next to none and I quickly stamped down hard on that fanciful hope knowing that it would only do me more harm than good in the end.

I had to think and act as a survivor. If I did not, I would become the next meal for the predators and scavengers of this wretched world. It was a fate I did not wish to endure but it was a fate I knew was ultimately going to happen to me someday, even if I somehow manage to survive for several years. I knew I was going to die here regardless. I silently cursed Moriarty and his gang for landing me in this situation. I cursed myself for being so stupid and failing to see what had been so obvious. If only I had seen the ruse, the trap that ensnared me and allowed the Assizes to convict me, I would be happily sitting back home flipping through the various letters and grams instead of wandering this desert trying to preserve my only flask of water for as long as possible.

My brooding was suddenly interrupted as I found myself stumbling into the hot sand, my foot having tripped over something buried in the yellow grains when I wasn't paying attention. I hissed as my bare hands came into contact with the scalding earth and I buried them into my desert parka which I had made out of the silk chute (along with a kufiyya[1]) the moment I had arrived here. I sat there for a moment and glanced back at what had caused me to stop my monotonous journey and glared at the grisly sight of a half buried skeleton poking out of the sands. Curious, I crawled forward and ignored the stinging heat of the earth and dug around the remains until I was able to determine what unfortunate creature had succumbed to the desert.

A human skull soon stared out at me, seemingly to laugh at my plight and remind me that this was going to become my fate. I glared at the cracked skull and picked it up out of the sand to turn it before me to curiously stare at the obvious dent in the back. I felt a flicker of hope flutter in my stomach at the sight. If this man had died from a murderous blow to the head, then that meant there were others on this planet. It did not bother me that the man had been most likely murdered by his fellow man, I had already known of the possibility that I could come across other exiles who had been convicted of a variety of crimes from petty pick pocketing to treason. I was simply elated at the thought that some of them had survived.

Where there were survivors there would surely be food, water and shelter.

With a renewed hope within me, I quickly dug up the rest of my unfortunate friend and soon discovered bits and pieces of his own personal possessions and claimed them as my own. An obsidian dagger that was broken in half and which I could easily reshape into a smaller blade, a pair of boots that had seen better times, a broken pocket watch and after examining it I knew I could fix with little trouble despite the lack of tools, and a pair of broken spectacles which would come in handy in lighting a fire and cooking meals (provided I could catch my meals).

Better prepared then I had been three days ago, I stood and dusted off the sand from my clothing and started my journey once more, a renewed hope in my step.

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_[1] kufiyya - an Arabic headpiece designed to protect the wearer from the harsh conditions of the desert_


	10. Subtlety

_The Professor makes his debut and shows us precisely how important math really is. _

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**Subtlety**

In my chosen and unscrupulous profession, one must not allow room for error for it could mean the difference between success or a long drop and sudden stop. I had not gained my position at the very top from carelessness and stupidity. No. I had gained my position as master of a thousand criminals from men with like minds to the lowliest fool by mere subtlety. Being a professor of mathematics had allowed me to refine my patience and see different avenues to a problem never seen before by the common masses. It has allowed me to appreciate the finer points of an equation and the wisdom in numbers and apply those same theorems and formulas to a more practical use.

In my case… crime.

The subtlety of math had proven time and again to be the most useful of all tools at my disposal. It had allowed me to calculate when exactly a hansom carrying an important official would reach his destination by computing the several factors that could delay or speed up his progress. So when it came time to abduct the person, he would be punctual and my men would be ready. It had allowed me to anticipate the arrival of the Yard as my men hurried to break into and steal precious jewels or wads of bank notes from a safe. It had allowed me to precisely calculate how fast a stone gargoyle could fall and how fast a man could walk so that he would be crushed exactly when the statue and he became intimately acquainted.

Math has allowed me to see the subtle details of a crime before it is committed by planning it out precisely.

As my nemesis is so fond of saying, "the little details are by far the most important."


	11. Wastelands

_*cries* I want to kill my laptop and MS Word! I had five new chapters for this collection all written and ready to be posted and when I get on the return trip to work on the fourth chapter to FQaC, I discover that all 5 files are corrupted and unrecoverable!!! *balls her head off, hiccups* _

_I'm so depressed that I'm just going to post the next installment to the Steampunk series to keep all of you happy for the time being and vent my frustration by pounding my head into the wall before I attempt to retype any of those chapters. I had a Watson one, a Irene/Holmes, and three connecting chapters that were a twist of the Great Mouse Detective inspired by the following artwork: http:// mimm. deviantart. com/ art/ The-Great-Human-Detective-150658410_

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**Wastelands**

My wrapped and bleeding fingers protested painfully as they were abused once more by my attempts to escape the sinister monsters below me. I ignored the pain as I latched onto another handhold into the sandstone rock to climb higher and out of reach of the furry lizards that hunted me this night. But I should have known that they could scale the rock far more easily than I. I realized this when I looked below and saw one of them scrambling after me.

As soon as it came close enough I kicked at its open maw, which was as huge as my own foot, to try and dislodge it from its own perch on the sandstone. It hissed and then squealed in hurt or surprise, I know not which nor did I really care so long as it fell back to its fellows below. Relieved for the moment that I was out of danger for the time being, I once more ignored the pain in my hands and resumed climbing until I had reached a ledge and collapsed onto my back to rest and catch my breath.

It has been a long time since I had ever felt genuine fear. The last time I had felt such emotions was when I had confronted Moriarty on this planet so long ago. He had chased Watson and I across the Terran Empire after I had successfully dismantled his criminal ring and I had fled for fear of my own life when _accidents_ started to become more frequent around me. The chase had ended here at this godforsaken place only because he had managed to force our cruise ship to drop out of interstellar space and I was tired of running.

I remember the fight as if it only happened yesterday. We were atop a cliff struggling for our very lives against each other and my friend lay unconscious behind us. My anger at what Moriarty had done to the doctor had given me the strength and desire to survive, overcome my fear and defeat the man. With a simple nimbleness of the arms and shifting of feet, I had sent the nefarious mastermind over the cliff but not to his death much to my woe.

I remember leaving him hanging on for dear life while I collected my wits and my friend. I still remember him calling out to me for help and playing on my good nature and need for justice, the fear of his own mortality very prominent in his tone. I almost went back for him if it had not been for Watson telling me to let him rot on this planet. The Wastelands would have been his final destination regardless and this way, my friend had reasoned, we would be certain he would end up here and not in some luxury prison for the criminally social elite.

Years later I still wonder if he had managed to survive here.

I was brought out of my reverie at the sound of claws scratching against stone and bolted up into a sitting position in time to see one of the lizards climb over the edge of the sandstone I was resting on. I wish I had my obsidian dagger with me but I had lost it in the initial struggle with the creatures. Just when it was about to lunge at me with a triumphant hiss, a loud crack sounded in the air and I watched as the lizard's head jerked back in a spray of blood and it fell back to its fellows only to become consumed by them.

Another crack sent the rest scattering into the dark shadows of the desert night and I was frantically trying to find the source of the gunshot. Whoever was out there had saved my life but I knew I had to be cautious. The only people on this planet, aside from myself, are criminals. Seeing no one after a few seconds, I crawled to the edge of my perch and looked down and around at my surroundings until my eyes caught sight of an amber glow to my right. Someone with a torch approached my hiding place and raised the make-shift light up at me, setting my features aglow with a warm color.

The person below me wore a desert parka made from leather, no doubt from the hides of the very lizards he had chased off, and a kufiyya about his head. Gear hung from his back and the various belts that were strapped around his legs, waist and torso and slung over his shoulder was the source of the cracking sounds earlier. It was a crude pellet gun and I wondered where he had found the resources to make one.

I could not see much in the dim light of the torch to discern much about this person, but I could easily tell that he was lithe and that he found my presence quite humorous. When he spoke, I realized I had erred in one part of my assessment of the fellow.

"Well, well, well…" _She_ had said to me in a tone of great amusement. "Never thought I would see _you_ here. Tell me; is the good doctor with you, Mister Holmes?"

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_My, my. Who is this person?_


	12. Pressure

_Here's an entry for Mycroft Holmes. Life as the elder sibling to a great detective was never easy. :D_

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**Pressure**

Being seven years the elder brother, Mycroft Holmes knew a great deal about pressure. Ever since his younger brother, Sherlock, had been born in the midst of a summer storm all those years ago, it had been pressed upon him to become the ideal role model for the boy. His task as elder brother was tedious and very difficult. It was very obvious at a young age, that his sibling was not going to make his life at all easy. He had taken after their mother with a most unusual thirst for knowledge and a sense for adventure, so much so that he would stick his nose in places he should not, often times nearly demonstrating the old adage of "curiosity killed the cat". Whereas Mycroft preferred to sit at home with his books of philosophy and mathematics, his younger brother would be outside gathering samples of everything and anything to bring back inside to test with his small chemistry set or to dismantle and reconstruct if it turned out to be a piece of machinery or some other complicated contraption.

The household clocks were often the victims of Sherlock's curiosity.

As were the family dogs.

As the years passed and Sherlock grew older and taller, Mycroft's role as elder brother increased. He would often find himself following after the younger boy to make sure that he did not get into too much trouble and often times he would be forced to extradite his sibling from said trouble and give him a lecture. A lecture which Sherlock always ignored and repeated what he was being reprimanded for. This rebellious streak no one knew where or whom exactly it came from. Their mother, although curious and a bit adventurous, was quite the proper lady and their father was far too strict and upstanding to have passed on such defiance in their youngest son. Mycroft had taken after their father, so it certainly had not come from him. The only conclusion any of them could come up with is that Sherlock had to have taken after some distant cousin or aunt and uncle on either side of the family. Who that was exactly, no one could figure out.

After their parents had died, pressure on Mycroft had grown exponentially. Not only did he have a younger brother to groom, but now he had both of themselves to care for and the estate to settle. Thankfully he had already finished his days in college and graduated with a degree in mathematics and statistics. Getting a position in Her Majesty's government had proven quite easy once it became apparent that he had a keen aptitude for finances.

When university finally came for his younger brother, Mycroft had hoped that his sibling would settle down some and take to his studies seriously and thus lifting some of the pressure as elder brother from his shoulders. Oh how wrong he was. In Sherlock's first year at the college, Mycroft had been summoned away from Whitehall to address an issue in which his sibling inadvertently blew up one of the labs. Well, he didn't exactly blow it up per say. But his experiment did erupt in his face, leaving him covered in soot with his hair standing on end, his eyebrows missing and the area he had been working at charred to a crisp. Sherlock had been fortunate that was all that had been damaged.

But it left Mycroft in a foul mood and several days pay short for the repairs to the chem lab.

In his younger brother's second year, he would get a telegram telling him that Sherlock had been hospitalized for a gut wound caused by someone shooting him in the stomach. At first he had been worried sick over as to what had happened to have caused someone to shoot his brother, but when he found out the truth, his worries had only begun. In addition to the risk of his brother blowing himself up with his chemistry experiments, he now had to worry about his brother literally sticking his nose in other people's business for now Sherlock had it in his head that he wanted to be the world's first consulting detective. Whatever that was.

When the fourth year of Sherlock's studies was coming around, Mycroft had come to believe that Sherlock had given up his fancy notion of becoming a detective since the younger man was elbow deep in his chemistry degree. It was only when word of a scandal had reached his ears did he realize his error in assuming anything about his younger brother. It was with this scandal and Sherlock's willing departure from the university that the two brothers had finally grown apart to barely speak to each other.

To Mycroft, he had failed to raise his younger sibling into a proper gentleman with a proper job. To Sherlock, he was despondent in his failure to prove to his elder brother that his "fancy notion" was more than just a passing interest, but his chosen profession by failing to solve the mystery that caused the scandal that had him willingly expelled from the university. The argument that had ensued shortly after Mycroft had found out the terrible news had left them both on no speaking terms and parting ways. Mycroft would return to Whitehall and his club while his younger sibling scraped a living on a non-existent profession.

But despite their disagreement, Mycroft was still compelled to watch out for his brother and the pressure of having to worry for him while he went through this apparent stage of interest, no obsession, in crime. So much so, that he would toss his brother a bone every now and then whenever Her Majesty's government required a more subtle approach to a problem.

It was only after when _A Study in Scarlet_ had been published in _The Strand_ did the two brothers finally reconcile and talked to each other again. Mycroft would learn both from Doctor Watson's stories and from his own contacts that his younger sibling's chosen profession had finally struck gold and that Sherlock was finally living healthily, if one could say getting constantly shot, stabbed and run down a healthy life. But the pressure of being the elder brother did not leave him as one would think when the younger brother finally made a life out of himself.

No.

Mycroft would continue to live with the pressure of watching out for his younger brother, even when said brother had to live on the run for three years, for that is the role of the elder brother. It is a role he had finally come to accept and live with, a role he was proud to have whenever he would enter into his offices on Whitehall and his colleagues would occasionally ask him as to how his brother was doing. But it was a role he no longer had to endure on his own any more with the arrival of Doctor John Watson on the stage. The majority of the pressure now fell upon Sherlock's best and only friend and Mycroft took a back seat to watch from afar and help whenever he was needed.

The only time his role with his sibling had reversed and the younger took on the pressure of caring for the elder, was when said elder had contracted and succumbed to the influenza pandemic in 1918. It was then that Mycroft could finally claim that he no longer had to feel the pressure of being Sherlock's elder brother.

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_Awww, poor Mycroft. Only in death could he finally rest. :(_


	13. Proof

_In this drabble, both Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Lestrade learn valuable lessons._

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**Proof**

"But..." the young man said in protest as I had to regrettably let the suspect go. "You let him go and he'll just do it again, Inspector." When will these amateurs learn that not all case solving is just figuring out the puzzle and their word against another?

"Unless you can provide solid _proof_, Mister Holmes," I told him as patiently as I could, like a father to a child who did not know any better, which in Mister Sherlock Holmes case, he apparently did not and was apparently still too young to be taken seriously despite having already come of age long ago. How old was he? Nineteen? Twenty? "Mister Hathorne will go free until then."

I saw him purse his lips in frustration and scowl slightly at me and then at Mister Hathorne, whom we both knew was responsible for the various thefts in the West End but neither of us had the proof needed to incarcerate and try him for the crimes. He was a slippery one and the man knew we had nothing as he gave us both a sly, triumphant grin.

"Perhaps better luck next time, boy?" Hathorne jibed at the young man before arrogantly tipping his hat to both of us. "Good day, Inspector Lestrade... _Mister Holmes_." The thief left with a chuckle as my young companion clenched his fists in anger before finding his composure once more with a couple deep breaths.

"You want proof, Inspector? Fine, I'll find the proof and I'll see that man in jail," Holmes said between clenched teeth. I did not try to stop him as he turned away with a flourish of his great coat and headed back into the house in which Hathorne had recently burgled priceless jewelry from the owners. I sighed heavily at the stubbornness of the amateur detective and followed after him.

"Mister Holmes, please leave this business to the professionals before you embarrass yourself any further." I tried to dissuade him from carrying on with the case but he only grunted in response while he got down on the floor and crawled around with his face just mere inches from the ground. What in God's name was he doing on the floor anyway?

"By all means, Lestrade," he quipped from the floor a few moments later, holding something between his fingers. He was crouched underneath the broken window the thief had used as an entry point into the house. "I shall leave the embarrassment to the _professionals_ as you put it."

I bristled at his insult and took a step forward to put the young man in his place when he held up whatever it was he had found, in my face. I soon forgot about my retort as I stared at a piece of fabric. "What is that?"

"Your _proof_, Inspector." Holmes answered and held it up to the light so we both could get a better look. "I'm surprised I had missed it before but I guess in my excitement of the case I had overlooked it. However, if I am not mistaken, Mister Hathorne shall have a tear in his pants... on the leg most likely."

"How do you know?" I argued.

"Because his pants are made of the same fabric that this tiny sliver is made of. I suggest you go fetch him before he gets too far or we'll be chasing him across the Continent next." Holmes grinned at me with an air of triumph that had me wanting to wipe it off. "Even if this doesn't convict him, it is enough for you to warrant his arrest and hold him until more evidence can be found _to_ convict him. He had been here and had, at least, interacted with this window by either breaking it or passing through it. Since this is not his home nor is he acquainted with the residence, therefore he has at least trespassed and committed breaking and entering."

I frowned at the sliver of fabric.

"That piece of cloth could have come from anyone," I countered.

"True, but I will wager my...," here Holmes seemed to pause as he thought of something he could wager this hunch of his on. "My future as a consulting detective, that his trousers will have a tear in it that matches this torn cloth. What do you say, Inspector? Are you a gambling man?"

To no longer have this amateur detective poking his nose in police business would be a relief, so I accepted his gamble and went after Hathorne before he could get too far. It did not take me long to catch up to him though and after much protesting on his part, he reluctantly showed me the legs of his trousers.

There were two things I learned that day, concerning Mister Sherlock Holmes. One, was to at least give him the benefit of doubt when it came to his conclusions of a case. The other thing, was to never gamble with that man _ever_ again.

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_And perhaps bet _on_ Sherlock Holmes, Inspector? Heh. Anyway, you all remember how I lost five files while in L.A., CA? Well, I remember what I had written and I've decided, after much thought, that I will simply rewrite them to something else. So hopefully I'll have five more entries for here soon. One more thing, if anyone has any suggestions or ideas you would like me to write, go ahead and ask me. All I ask is that you do not ask me to write Slash. I can write it, but I prefer not to.  
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	14. Height

_I say, I'm more active in writing for this fandom than I was for Pirates of the Caribbean. What is it about Sherlock Holmes? _

_Anywho... here's another one-shot looking into Holmes' character from Watson's POV._

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**Height**

"Watson! For the love of all that is good and Holy," exclaimed my long time friend from a safe distance away from the cliff edge which I now happily stood overlooking to watch the frothy waves crash soundly against the rocks below. "Step back from that precarious edge before you fall over it!"

"Oh don't be such a bore, Holmes!" I replied teasingly back and took a step forward to lean over for another glance. I heard him hiss in displeasure at my boldness and wondered if I took another step forward if he would come rushing to me to pull me back from the edge. I did not understand why he was acting this way. It would not be the first time since our friendship began that I had daringly stepped up to overlook a cliff edge. Nor did he ever protest with such vehemence either. I wondered what has caused him to change his mind about my adventurous tendencies to watch the power of Nature at work at the bottom of a cliff from up above.

"I am not being a bore," he replied testily and I glanced in time to see him look away and fold his arms across his chest. But despite his indignation, I caught his gray eyes looking back at me with worried concern, as if I might fall over the edge at any moment. "I... just do not believe it is very wise to stand so close to the edge of a cliff. You could fall over any moment without warning, old chap."

I laughed a little at his concern and regretted it the moment the sound escaped my lips. It was rare to see him show any emotion, much less concern for another being's welfare and my mirthful frivolity over it had apparently irked him. It left me a bit confused. "Holmes, my dear old friend, why the sudden concern for my welfare over a matter that I've done countless times before in the past?"

"It is not concern," he answered after a moment's hesitation, unfurling his arms from his chest and burying the hands into the pockets of his trousers. He appeared to relax a little when I finally walked away from the edge to come over and stand beside him. "I just think you are being rather careless of your own welfare, Watson. It is a long drop to the jagged rocks below and..." Holmes seemed to choke on his words and he glanced away to feign interest in an insect flitting about a wild flower a few feet away.

"You've never thought that before, Holmes," I said to him. I was curious now as to why he was so fearful of me falling over the edge. "In fact, I remember you always joining me to take a look. Now, though, its almost as if you're..." I paused as the realization suddenly hit me like a runaway freight train. He turned his sharp gaze on me when I had trailed off in my words and he knew that I knew why he was so reluctant to have me at the edge and why he was standing so far away from it. "You're afraid."

"Ridiculous!" he ejaculated and gestured wildly with his hands to emphasize his statement.

"Yes you are!" I argued and followed after him when he started walking away. "You've always joined me at the cliffs before. Why the sudden phobia now?"

He gave me a pointed look over his shoulder as we stepped back out onto the worn path that would lead us back to town and to our hotel room where we were staying for the holiday. He looked like he was going to argue the point with me but then after a moment's thought, decided against it. Holmes shoulders slumped minutely in resignation as he answered me at last. "Is it not obvious, my dear fellow?"

My face scrunched up in confusion for a moment before relaxing as I thought about it. The last time I remember him standing at the edge of some cliff with a considerable amount of height to it had been Reichenbach Falls.

Reichenbach Falls!

I should have known! He had had a mortal struggle at the top of such a precarious cliff and had been nearly smashed to death by boulders sent down by Moriarty's confederate as well as nearly slipping to fall to his own death on his own. I could only imagine how his mind must have conjured up the most horrendous of imaginings had his encounter with the Napoleon of Crime gone differently in the waning days after said encounter. It should have come as no surprise to me that my friend would have suddenly found an aversion to incredible heights concerning cliffs with frothing water at its bases.

With this realization dawning on me, I placed a gentle hand on his shoulder as I walked beside him. "Oh, Holmes, I should not have teased you like so," I said to him in my most apologetic tone, "can you forgive me?"

My friend's gaze fell upon me with a slight smile on his lips and he nodded slightly in answer. "Just do not ask me to join you and do try to keep a marginal safe distance when you do gaze upon those deadly rocks below, old chap."

I smiled at him and clasped his shoulder affectionately, still trying to come to terms to the fact that my fearless friend wasn't as fearless as I had always believed. We all have our own phobias, including my friend, Sherlock Holmes.

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_I figured Holmes might be leery about standing close to cliff edges that had water at the bottom after his near fatal experience at Reichenbach, rather than a fear of heights in general like other authors have written him to have._


	15. Lovers In Disguise Deleted Scene

_Deleted Scene from "From the Journal of Sherlock Holmes: Ch2 Lovers In Disguise". I had removed this scene because I felt it was not written well and Holmes had become too OOC for my tastes. So I'm posting it here in "Curious Cases" for those that wanted to know what that scene was and because i cannot find the heart to delete all this text after spending hours typing it. And no I'm not going to rewrite the scene and add it back in to the series. I just don't feel it's necessary for the story.  
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_"Besides the obvious that I'm three hundred years separated from her?" I laughed dryly at my own sardonic humor but found it not even the least bit funny. I felt her nod in answer and knew she was waiting for me to elucidate._

_Softly and remorsefully, I answered her. "She died."_

I had closed my eyes to try and block out my surroundings and tried to remember what had happened that had caused me to try and forget about her and what we had shared. The memories came back to me far easier than I had expected and I recalled the last evening we shared together, however unpleasant it was to me in the end.

For three years I had been in self-exile, traveling across the majority of Europe as a Norwegian explorer doing what I could to dismantle the remainder of Moriarty's gang and the occasional side job for Mycroft while also trying to enjoy myself despite the impending danger around every corner. In the first six months of my travels I had been alone, doing my best in refusing to write to my best friend to let him know I was alive and well and nearly failing in every attempt. Fear for his safety and the safety of his wife was the only thing that kept me from ever sending those letters to him. The first six months were the most miserable in my life. I had never known such misery ever before and probably would never have felt it if Watson had not come into my orbit and being caught in it.

For once in my life I hated being alone.

It was only on pure chance that the next two and half years I would get to spend my exile in pleasurable company. I had been in Marseille, France with the intentions of obtaining passage across the Mediterranean to Morocco when I had detected the familiar scent of Parisian perfume. At first I had thought nothing of it until I spotted a familiar, flowered hat in the crowded market and my mind put two and two together. She had been there, oblivious to my presence (by then I had already perfected my disguise and looked nothing like my normal self) until I had approached her and introduced myself with a French name she would have been familiar with. A name I had used before to try and get the upper-hand over her on a past case involving a ruby and a French nobleman. She had been equally as pleased to see me as I had been her and very relieved too it seemed.

She obviously had read Watson's account of _The Final Problem_ and had been deeply affected by my supposed demise. So when I had appeared before her completely resurrected, or reincarnated since I looked nothing like myself she had teased, we had wasted little time finding a tiny cafe in the port city to luncheon and catch up on current events since we had last seen each other. For once in our relationship, she was not trying to drug me and I was quite grateful for it. Irene had learned of how I had survived and what I had been doing since Reichenbach and in turn I had learned she had given up her unsavory adventurous life for the stage once more, much to my surprise.

I never did leave for Morocco that day or week after meeting with Irene. Instead she had given me a most enticing proposal that I could not and would have been foolish to refuse. She knew my acting ability, having had the pleasure of personally experiencing it on numerous occasions, and knew of my musical talent with the violin and amateur singing to offer me the opportunity to join the Marseille Opera Theatrical Company that she performed for. Irene explained to me that they traveled and performed all across of France, Germany and Italy during the off-season here at Marseille and were always looking for new, talented performers. After much coaxing on her part and a telegraph from my brother telling me that it would make an excellent cover story for my other covert missions for Queen and Country, that I eventually gave in and accepted her offer. I was immediately accepted into the performing company as an actor and violinist until my _talent_ as a singer improved, which Irene gladly helped me work on in private.

For about two years we traveled with the company across Europe, performing for audiences in whatever plays and operas our managers wanted us to perform and not caring one bit if it was improper for an unmarried couple to be more than friendly with each other behind the stage. We were never in the proper mind to conform to society's wishes about what kind of relationship we were suppose to have. Ha! For years ever since we first crossed paths thanks to our mutual Royal acquaintance, we never did do what society would have wanted us to do. A detective and a criminal. It was a scandal old wives would have loved to tattle their tongues on!

In addition to our Thespian lives, I gave Irene a taste of what it was like to be on the right side of the law, chasing down the criminals rather than being chased. Together we secretly solved cases that either my brother dropped in my lap or we came across on our own in whatever city we happened to be in. The criminal world never did quickly catch on to the possibility that a traveling performing troupe was linked to a Norwegian explorer and his French adventuress, else wise Erik von Rattegan[1] and his notorious gang of murderers and thieves would have caught up with us a lot sooner than they had.

It would not be until about five months before my return to the world's stage, that Rattegan would catch up to us in an almost similar chase that Watson and I had experienced as we fled across the continent to escape Moriarty. The difference being this time I had a lot more to lose than just my life and a friend. Irene and I had quit the company a few weeks prior due to medical reasons, which she had not felt in telling me the truth about and which I only found out after she was gone, and because Mycroft's latest case required us to be elsewhere and a place that the traveling troupe did not venture to. Egypt was our destination and a high profile murder at a British archeological dig had been our interest.

We never even got to Cairo.

Rattegan had intercepted us in Piraeus[2] and managed to arrange our missing the ship that would have taken us across the Mediterranean to Egypt. We found ourselves waylaid in a narrow alley by what was left of his gang and chased across half of the port city before they had managed to trap us. Despite our handicaps, we had put up a valiant fight against Rattegan and his men and true to his nature, the German fled once he realized he was only down to just himself and a couple of others. At least that was what we had assumed he was doing and it was an assumption I will always come to regret and blame myself for til the day I die and for good.

Irene had dispatched the last henchman and against my vehement protest, had gone after Rattegan while I was still struggling with my own and remaining henchman. I had the man in a headlock when I heard the familiar sound of a loud puff of air somewhere in the street in which Irene had emerged into. My head snapped up in time to watch as time slowed and my heart raced in horror at what I had been forced to witness. I watched as my closest companion of the last two years reacted to the impact of the bullet as it hit her square in the shoulder, spinning her around and to the compacted dirt road just at the mouth of the alley we had been fighting in.

"**No!**" I had cried and finished off the man I was struggling with before my suddenly weighted feet propelled me forward and to her. I was never given the chance to fall to her side for another puff of air from somewhere in the street sent chips of brickwork into my face where my head had been just milliseconds before. There was a sniper out there and was keeping an eye on the entrance to the alley for me. Whoever it was, was determined to see me join Irene on the ground.

I stood desperately in the shadows and out of the line of sight of said assassin, my eyes riveted on the woman I admired and cared for a great deal, laying in her growing pool of blood just a few feet from me. I could see she was still alive, her breathing laborious as she struggled for her life. I had cried to anyone for help in English and then French and German and cursed my lacking knowledge in linguistics. When someone had tried to come and help, our sniper had sent a warning shot that scattered the Greeks that had been willing to help my Irene. The bastard was using her as bait to draw me out of the alley and into his line of sight!

"Irene!" I wanted to go to her but we both knew that I could not. I shifted anxiously on my feet and was ready to spring out for her when her voice caught me before the act and I froze. My gaze went to her pleadingly and I felt my heart plummet at her words and the softness of her tone.

"Don't," she said, imploring me to not do what I had decided to try. "It is only a flesh wound, my dear."

"You are bleeding all over the road, Irene. Flesh wound be damned!" She knew I was right. There was too much blood too fast for it to be just a flesh wound. "Please, let me try!"

She shook her head. "He'll kill you if you do."

"I'd rather die trying than stand here watching you die instead!" I was about to do it when her next words finally persuaded me from it.

"Sherlock," she said softly to me, almost pleadingly. "You and I both know that I will not live through this regardless of what you do in the next minute or so. If you foolishly waste your life trying to save someone you cannot, than who will be able to find the man responsible for my murder and see to it he hangs for it? You are good to me alive, my dear. Please, think with that great brain of yours and not your heart this time."

Her words had been like a dagger driven into my heart.

She had been right. She was always right. Even as I watched her slowly bleed to death with a sniper silently making sure no one helped his bait, I came to realize that I would lose her for good this time and that the only way I could avenge her was to find the man responsible for my loss. I remembered sliding down the wall I had been leaning against and watched her labored breathing become shallower with each passing minute and talking to her, hoping that my voice would be enough for her to use as an anchor to cling to, to stay alive until help could come. But help never came in time and I was left to helplessly watch as that labored breathing slowed to a stand still with a final shuddering breath.

I remembered fleeing once I knew the life had left her body, her last words of affection on my mind. I stood quickly and ran down the narrow alley, away from the scene, away from Death and away from the assassin that was hoping I would irrationally step out in my grief to be shot by him. I did not stop running until it was well past dark and I had thoroughly exhausted myself and was lost.

I opened my eyes and forced myself to rein in my emotions as the last thread of that memory faded back into the recesses of my mind to, hopefully, be locked away again for the rest of my second life. I focused on the artificial flames in front of me as I gathered my thoughts and found my voice again once I was certain I was in control once more to finish the tale I now realize I had been telling the New Scotland Yard inspector.

"She never had a chance. He never gave her the chance to live. "

"Who was he?" Lestrade asked next to me and I looked up at her finally. She scrutinized my face and I wondered what she saw that I had missed in hiding. Whatever it was she had seen, she was tactful enough to keep it to herself and save me the embarrassment.

"Colonel Moran."

"Moriarty's right hand." She did not seem surprised by the revelation. Perhaps it was because she already knew the stories all too well to recognize when an air-gun was being used. Only one person used that unique weapon, the same weapon that was in New Scotland Yard's refurbished museum. "_The Empty House_ wasn't about Ronald Aldair or your chance to return, was it? It was about her."

I nodded.

"What did you do after you had fled?"

Here I took a deep breath and returned my gaze back to the fire. What _had_ I done after my Irene had been murdered in front of me? "I had gone back to the scene and searched for where the sniper had lain in wait for us to see if I could find clues as to who he was. All I found were cigarette stubs of a generic British brand in an abandoned mud-brick house across the street and that the assassin was tall, well built, used a cane and was respectively wealthy. I had not realized at the time that the cane was the actual murder weapon..."

After I had finished combing the area of the crime, I remembered having traced where the Greek authorities had taken her body and spent the next several hours in the morgue alone with her, doing nothing but letting my mind run in a rut at the sight of her serene form, quietly and eternally sleeping on the cold table. My grief stricken vigil had been interrupted by the coroner arriving and inquiring as to who I was and what I was doing in his morgue. I had lied to him that I was a French investigator sent from the local embassy to look into Mademoiselle Irene deBois' murder and wanted to know what he had learned about the victim that could help in the investigation. He told and showed me the evidence he had gathered and swore that if it had not been for witness statements that he would have believed that the woman had been murdered by a gunman with a revolver. What he said next I had not been prepared for nor expected to hear when I inquired to him about her 'medical condition', explaining that I had been informed that she had been diagnosed with an affliction.

"Unless you call having a child, a boy even, an affliction, monsieur, she was fit as a fiddle." He must have seen my shock after this revelation for he began to ask me again as to who I was. I gave him my lie again before I carelessly excused myself from the morgue, barely paying attention to where I was going or who saw me.

She had been with child and she had not told me!

Why?

I would never know the answer to that question and for the longest time I had felt apathetic toward her for her deception. After making arrangements with my brother for her body to be sent back to England to be buried, I left Greece knowing that I needed to keep moving or that assassin would catch up to me again and finish the job. I would be in Egypt when I came across an old article about my friend back home and his loss. I knew how he felt and because of the nature of my self-imposed exile and that I was suffering myself, I could not write to him and give my condolences or be there.

But a part of me did not want to be there nor really cared for his loss. With that thought, I realized to my horror that Irene's death was effecting me far harder than I had expected and I began to examine my current existence. I was on a self-destructive path that would lead to my death if I did not do something about it. Not knowing what to do or how to go about to doing it, I had chosen to resume my role as the Norwegian explorer in the hopes that travel would be enough to set me straight again. I would then spend the remainder of my time traveling eastward and ignoring my brother's requests to investigate certain events along my way. Eventually I would find myself in Tibet where a group of Buddhist monks saw through my unemotional facade and brought me to their temple where I stayed with them to "heal a great loss that had been created in my heart, mind and soul."

I stayed there for weeks, possibly even months for time seemed insignificant to me at the temple of the Dali Lama, before a message from my brother had somehow found me to tell me to return to England and wire him immediately for details as soon as I reached civilization again. As soon as Mycroft had given me the details of the Aldair murder, I knew immediately that the assassin who had murdered my Irene and my unborn son was the same man who had tried to kill me at Reichenbach and who had killed Ronald Aldair. Once back in mainland Europe it only took me a few hours to figure out which of Moriarty's lieutenants was still free and unharassed and come up with a plan both suitable and subtle enough to ensnare the tiger and get both justice for Irene and revenge for myself at the same time.

The events that had happened in Watson's story, _The Adventure of the Empty House,_ only defers from the truth after I had revealed myself to my friend in his study. The story I had told him had been changed by him to protect my reputation, so it told only half-truths and lies by omission with only the events of Reichenbach being nothing but the whole truth. What had happened in the house across from my flat was a mellowed version of the real events that had transpired that night.

If it had not been for Watson, I probably would have ended my career there on that cold evening of 1894. I remember laying in wait with my longtime friend, my muscles tense with anticipation and my mind quite eager for revenge. He knew what I wanted. I had told him about Irene and what Moran had done, but he had not known the extent of how far I would go to avenge her and the son I had neglected in telling him. If he had, he would have seen to it that I had not participated in our trap that night. When Colonel Moran finally made his debut on stage and murdered my double, I had wasted no time in pouncing on him out of the darkness with a cry of fury.

"Holmes!" I had barely heard my friend as Moran and I struggled for dominance over the other. In the seconds we were wrestling on the floor, he recognized who I was and his own personal rage for what I had done to him and his mentor and friend, he found a strength fueled by his own hatred for me and managed to turn the tables on me. Watson came to my rescue and clubbed the man on the back of his head, dazing him long enough to pry him off of my throat and for us both to wrestle him back to the ground and restrain him.

I would have given in to my own hatred and killed him if it had not been for my Boswell talking sense into me and if Lestrade and his men had not joined us when they did to take control of the seething tiger hunter. But despite all that had been said, Moran's departing words had cut to the quick faster and harder than any other man had ever tried and done and undone every rational argument Watson had whispered to me.

"Tell me, Holmes, for I must know," Moran had said to me as Clarke and the others began to take him away. "Did you stay in that Greek alley and watch her die or did you flee after I shot at you and left her to die alone instead? You must tell me whether you were the lovesick detective my informants were telling me of or the cold, calculating and heartless bastard your friend there writes you as."

He laughed cruelly at me and did not stop when I snapped. "There is only one heartless bastard in this room," I had said as I lunged for him. His laughter died when my hands managed to momentarily get around his throat before both Watson and Lestrade managed to pull me off him before I could actually apply any strength to kill him.

"Get him out of here, Clarke!" Lestrade had hollered at his constables and they did as they were told. Moran continued to laugh at me long after he was out of my sight and gone from Baker Street. "What was that all about, Mister Holmes?" he had asked a moment later and I did not even have the heart or energy to chastise him for his obliviousness to what had just been said and done.

"Your ancestor did catch on later that day and spoke to Watson about it," I spoke softly to the descendant of the man that had agreed with my Boswell to not allow the truth of that adventure to become public knowledge. No one needed to know of my loss or that I had had an affair with a reformed criminal. "They were the only ones that knew aside from my brother and as far as I know they took it to their graves."

"I know Giles and Watson did. Something like that, if they had written or spoken of it, would have eventually been found out in the last three hundred years by my family." I glanced up at her from my armchair where sometime during my narration I had resumed sitting in.

"Yes. Lestrade, although he was made out to be an imbecile in Watson's stories, was rather intelligent in his own way and knew how to keep a secret." I laughed humorlessly at the irony. Three hundred years separated when the last Lestrade had known and here I was telling another Lestrade. I wondered if the events of today and my retelling a painful part of my life was Irene's way of telling me not to forget her despite all my efforts to do so.

The silence that had fallen in the room permeated for several minutes longer before my female colleague broke it with a curious but odd question. "Do you know where your brother buried her?"

I looked up at Lestrade and blinked curiously at her, wondering where she was going with her inquiry. I decided there was no harm in answering her and nodded. "Yes, but she has since been moved from that site to out in the country. I had arranged for her to be buried in Sussex in the final years leading up to my own death. I _was_ supposed to be buried next to her, but it seems somehow or someone had messed up and put me in a warehouse for the last three hundred years instead."

I quirked a brow at her. I had been wondering how I ended up there instead of where I intended to go. The Inspector only shrugged her shoulders and smiled amusingly at me. "I do not know how that happened, just that it had and I'm glad for it even if you might not be, Holmes. Now... I take it this cemetery is the same one near where you lived in Sussex?"

"Supposedly," I answered. "Three hundred years is a long time and numerous cemeteries could have popped up in that time. I only hope that her grave has not been desecrated by thieves and corrupt morticians."

Lestrade did not say another word for several minutes and in a way I was grateful for the silence. Reliving these memories and discussing my former flame has left me both emotionally and physically exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to retreat into myself and shut out the rest of the world until I had managed to force the memory of Irene Adler to the back of my mind. But like I had said before, she seemed determined to see to it that I remembered her again.

"You know, Holmes," Lestrade said after she apparently gathered her thoughts on whatever it was she had been thinking about. She leaned against my armchair, the wing specifically, and looked down at me from her perch. "I think you need time to yourself, away from everything that is the Twenty-Second century. A holiday out the countryside, I think would do you a world of good. Could even take the time to see if you can find Miss Adler's grave. What do you think?"

I blinked at her suggestion and stared up at her in mild surprise. "Are you certain that is wise while Moriarty is still out there?"

Lestrade grinned at me. "I'm certain New Scotland Yard can handle Moriarty for a few days while you are away, Holmes. Besides, the future has asked too much from you without giving something back. Go to the countryside, you'll find that it hasn't changed too much in the last three hundred years. The fresh air will do you a world of good and you do need it."

I smiled slightly and wondered if she was descended from Watson or not. She certainly did have that same concerned streak that he had. She was also probably right about me needing to take a holiday to the countryside. I had only been alive for a few months now and my moods had begun to become blacker with each passing day. Today was certainly a testament to my temperament.

"I think I will, Lestrade. Starting tomorrow."

She straightened her posture and then uniform next to me and I knew she would be leaving me alone shortly. "Good. Take the next week off."

"Certainly."

"Be sure to take Watson with you," she added half way across the sitting room toward the door.

I frowned.

"Absolutely not!"

"He's going with you, Holmes!"

I grunted in reply and scowled at the fireplace. There goes any holiday I might have enjoyed.

"Must he pretend to be my Watson?" I protested and I suspected she was viewing me like some pouting child. Another trait of Watson's that I think Lestrade had. She _had_ to be descended from him. I really needed to investigate into that some time soon.

"He cannot help it, Holmes. The techs back at headquarters tried to restore him without damaging him."

"Would have been an improvement," I muttered under my breath.

Lestrade sighed from where she stood at the door and opened it before saying, "I'm going now. Be sure to check in with New Scotland Yard, Holmes."

"You check in," I quipped back at her retreating back and flinched when she slammed the door.

She was most _definitely_ descended from Watson.

* * *

[1] Rattegan is a tribute to that great Disney film, _The Great Mouse Detective_, and its villain Ratigan. It also means "Rat" (Ratte) and "Liver" (gan) in German and Vietnamese respectively. Eww.

[2] Piraeus is a major port city just south of Athens, Greece

* * *

_Although this is a deleted scene for "From the Journal of Sherlock Holmes: Ch2 Lovers In Disguise", the tiny subplot is still going to be in the series even though I've taken a nice portion of it out with this deleted scene. So then it is a question of Lestrade's heritage! Is she a Lestrade or is she a Watson or perhaps both? After all __**how**__ did her family get a hold of Watson's journals as a family heirloom? Guess we'll get to find out when Holmes gets off his lazy butt and looks into it. Heh._


	16. Dozen

**Dozen**

A dozen feet pounded up the seventeen steps of 221b Baker Street, quickly followed by giggling and laughter of merriment associated with the innocence and carefreeness of children. Neither occupant of the chaotic flat had time to prepare themselves for the rush of ill-kempt street urchins that ran into the sitting room, quickly huddling around the unsuspecting ex-army surgeon in their attempts to show him their recently gained prizes or inquiring if he had any more of those delicious gumdrops he usually gave them.

It was the strict clearing of a throat from across the room that wrought their attention and immediately all six boys stopped their chatter and stood erect at attention like six little soldiers of the detective's army. In a way, the Baker Street Irregulars were an army.

An army of spies and pickpockets.

"Now that I have your undivided attention, my Irregulars," Sherlock Holmes finally spoke, a fleeting trace of a smile upon his lips at the sight of the unruly children crowding the overwhelmed doctor as the man stood by his desk. "I have a task for you."

And as if someone were parting a great secret to them, the children eagerly gathered around the detective and listened intently to his instructions and requests, before once more a dozen feet pounded back down the seventeen steps of 221b Baker Street.


	17. Insanity

_Ah my imagination has once more come up with some insane thus this entry is appropriately named._

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**Insanity**

Upon his instructions I had gathered whatever constables I could, amongst them was my trusted second, Clarke, and await for him and Doctor Watson outside an abandoned warehouse on the wharf. All I had been told was that a group of religious zealots of an ancient and diabolical cult were inside, and apparently responsible for several disappearances and strange happenings, and that we were to wait for a signal from him before we moved in. But upon seeing the Doctor waiting outside unsteadily against one of the numerous barrels lining the edge of the docks in front of the warehouse, I had a feeling something was wrong but I did not know what yet exactly.

"Where is Holmes, Doctor?" I inquired of him, sounding irritated that Holmes was not here to tell me what exactly was going on here.

"The fool went inside alone," the former army surgeon told me angrily and I watched as he massaged what looked like a nice sized goose egg on the back of his head. Holmes apparently had knocked his partner out, no doubt to keep him from following him inside the warehouse. "Idiot tricked me and knocked me out when I refused to stay behind. I don't know how long he's been in there."

"How long after I left did this happen?" asked I, growing more irritated with the confounding detective. Why didn't that fool wait for my return with reinforcements? I, of course, knew the answer to that question. He was impatient and did not think I would hurry. It is not like I could just summon my men out of thin air whenever he needed them!

"About five minutes..." the Doctor answered and checked his probing hand for any blood, which thankfully, there was none. Holmes had hit him just hard enough to knock him out but not cause any serious or permanent damage to his friend.

"Then its been about fifteen minutes since he went in." I gestured for my men to spread out around the warehouse and kept Clarke at my side who dutifully stayed quiet during this exchange until now.

"Shall we go in then, sir?" he asked and I glanced at the ramshackle building before shaking my head.

"We'll give him another five minutes. If his signal isn't seen by then, we'll move in and arrest the lot of them inside."

Those five minutes passed unnervingly for us. The Doctor had wanted to go in sooner but I wouldn't let him. If Holmes did not want him in there, then the man had good reason and I was not going to allow myself to receive a dress down by Holmes if I did allow the Doctor to go in and he get hurt. Holmes was an unforgiving man whenever it came to the well-being of the Doctor. Bad enough I am constantly insulted by the insufferable man.

Just before I would give the order for my men to go in to the warehouse and arrest the occult inside and perhaps rescue Holmes from whatever trouble he found himself in, the side door next the main sliding doors suddenly slammed open and out came running the man himself. What I saw on him shocked me.

Terror.

Abject terror was writ all over his face and in his frantic flight from the warehouse. He alighted us and quickly changed his trajectory straight for us. The Doctor had rushed up to his colleague and grabbed a hold of Holmes, trying his best to calm the man down. Never before have I ever seen Sherlock Holmes so terrified and for a second I wondered what was in the warehouse that could frighten him so.

"Mister Holmes?" I asked after the Doctor managed to get the detective to sit against the barrels and loosened his cravat.

"Lestrade!" he exclaimed suddenly as if he just now realized I was there. He leapt to his feet and grabbed me by my lapels, nearly hauling me off my feet in the process with fear induced strength. "Get your men away from that warehouse and cordon off this entire area! No one must be permitted to enter this part of the wharf, their very lives depends on keeping their distance!"

"Good Lord, Holmes, what has happened in there?" the Doctor cried and pulled the frantic detective off of me much to my relief.

"A most diabolical evil has been raised, Watson!"

"Raised?" I asked in confusion.

"Yes, you idiot! Raised! As in to summon, to contrive, to call, to bring forth!" he shouted at me and I glared most vehemently back at him for his belittling. But I was not going to take this from him without knowing what exactly it is that I am suppose to be protecting the people of London from. I voiced as much to him and he glared back at me.

"Yog-Sothoth himself!" he announced as if it was the most obvious fact. Before I could say another word, he suddenly spun around at something that neither any of us could hear or see but apparently he could. The next thing we knew, Holmes had yanked the Doctor's cane from him and unsheathed a sword before lunging at whatever it was that he could see. The fact that he was the only one that could see it to attack it concerned me a great deal.

I glanced at the Doctor and then at Clarke and saw the same confusion and concern I felt over the detectives actions reflected in their own faces. Our silent reflection was soon interrupted with a pained cry from Holmes and the clattering of metal on cobblestone. I snapped my attention back to him as the Doctor rushed forth to help his friend. Holmes was on his knees, clutching at his head as if in great pain and the Doctor's sword cane rested before him on the ground.

"Lestrade! Bring a Maria around, Holmes needs to be taken to a hospital!" the Doctor shouted and I saw why. I do not know what had transpired before us or what had happened in the warehouse, but seeing blood trickle from his eyes and ears spurred me into action quickly. I shouted to Clarke to fetch the Maria and sent another constable to pull the others back from the warehouse before approaching closer to the two friends.

"What happened to him?" I inquired as I knelt beside the two.

"I do not know... yet." The Doctor shook his head in reply and wiped away the blood from Holmes face and ears. The detective was unconscious but seemed to be delirious in his temporary comatose state. He was muttering words of a strange language I could not understand and I frowned.

"These... symptoms are similar to the others," I noted and the Doctor nodded worriedly. If indeed Holmes had fallen victim to the same thing the other victims had fallen to, then I feared for the worse for the man. "He'll..."

"Not on my watch he won't!" the Doctor growled and then picked up his friend as the Maria arrived with Clarke hanging off its side. I helped him put Holmes into the back and the Doctor leapt inside deftly despite his old injury. I shut the doors behind Clarke who joined the Doctor and the detective before walking to the front of the Maria.

"Take them to the London Hospital!" I shouted to the constable driving the contraption and he flicked the whip at the horses and the great beasts lurched forward with a clattering of hooves. As soon as the Maria was out of sight I turned to the returning constables. "Right then, until the Doctor learns what happened to Mister Holmes, I want this area cordoned off. No one is allowed in or out of this wharf, Sergeant!"

"Right, sir!" the leading Sergeant replied and quickly coordinated the men into quarantining the area from the civilians. As much as I wanted to storm the warehouse, I was reluctant to send my men into a danger that has committed several people to Bedlam with fanciful tales of demonic dragon-squids and balls of fire and an impending apocalypse upon our world with the return of these creatures. I did not believe any of it to be true, but even I could not disregard the facts.

The fact that Sherlock Holmes had given in to such claims had me worried and I could only draw to one conclusion.

This whole case was insanity!

* * *

_Oh dear, what has happened to Sherlock Holmes?_


	18. Insanity II

_Continuation from the last. This one is told from Watson's perspective this time._

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**Insanity**

"You are a good friend, Doctor Watson," said the psychologist while he administered a sedative to my friend and colleague, Sherlock Holmes, as he twisted and squirmed on the rolling gurney in the London Hospital, onlookers watching with morbid curiosity. It would not be long before this incident reached the newspapers and my friend's reputation shattered.

I tried my best to ignore his deranged warnings of the coming apocalypse and tried to tell myself that whatever had happened to him in the warehouse had affected his mind, that this was the occults fault and not his or my own. "I do not feel like a good friend right now, Doctor Ivanson," I replied and let go a heavy sigh as my friend slowly succumbed to the morphine, his frantic cries of Yog-Sothoth is here and Cthulhu will soon come, slowly quieted with the rest of his body.

I did not like seeing Holmes restrained to the gurney by leather straps around his wrist, ankles and waist but Ivanson said it was necessary to protect the patient from himself and those around him. According to the psychologist, Holmes was suffering from a classic case of schizophrenia based on my own and Lestrade's description of recent behavior and how he was behaving now.

The incident at the warehouse had not been the first time Holmes had shown deranged behavior out of what was ordinary for him. In fact, as far as I can remember he did not start showing such signs until after we had left that opium den along the Thames a few days ago. I narrowed my eyes at my delusional friend suspiciously.

"None sense," Ivanson replied as he put away the syringe and checked Holmes pupils. "By committing him to Bedlam, Doctor, you have taken the first step in helping him recover."

"I just hope he'll emerge from there intact," said I after a moment of silence. I have both heard and seen what the doctors in Bedlam could do to a person committed there and the result of said practices. Most patients end up remaining there for the rest of their pitiful lives as nothing more then broken shells of who they had once been. I did not want that for my friend but there was no alternative. These delusions he was having acted much the same as if he had been broken by the psychologists in Bedlam.

I followed the white coated orderlies as they pushed Holmes down the halls of the hospital toward the waiting Maria that would take him to Bedlam. Doctor Ivanson walked alongside me and discussed the procedures that my friend would undergo for the duration of his stay at Bedlam. I cringed at what he was describing and I could only wonder how torture could cure a man of his insanity.

"You will, of course, contact his brother and I before you take any more serious measures in his treatment?" my tone of voice left no room for argument. I did not want Holmes to undergo the more dangerous treatments without being consulted first.

"Of course, Doctor," Ivanson replied with a wary smile. He reached up and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder, a reassurance I did not feel with the gesture. I watched as the orderlies transferred my friend from the gurney to a restraining stretcher before placing him into the back of the transport. "Do not worry so, your friend is in capable hands."

If I had known how much of a lie that had been, I would have taken Holmes out of the transport and fled with him into the darkness of London at that very moment. But I had not known and thus I had to endure watching my friend being taken away to a hospital for the insane.

* * *

_Oh noes! Holmes is being taken to Bedlam! What did those occultists do to him? And what has Ivanson done to have Watson wish he hadn't allowed his friend to be taken away?_


	19. Insanity III

_Continuation from the last. This one is told from Holmes perspective and many questions will be answered by him._

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**Insanity**

I do not know how long they kept me under sedation after arriving at Bethlehem Hospital[1], but the one thing I do know and clearly remember were the dreams, nay, nightmares was a more apt description, that plagued my overactive imagination while I slumbered. Dragon-like squids and globes of fire and earth haunted my dreams. The names acquainted with those manifestations rang through my mind like sinister melodies. Images of a depraved and decadent London I dreaded to ever see frightened me to the core. The last I could not shake away so easily with my logical mind for I knew it could come true one day, if not by the manifestations of a sick and twisted occult, then by our own doing as we lost ourselves to immoral and ecstatic thinking.

When I finally did awaken from my nightmares, I had found myself restrained to an uncomfortable bed in a small ten by ten stone chamber that smelled and looked worse than the alleyways of the East End. For a hospital they certainly did not keep things sanitary for their patients. I shuddered at the thought of what I could pick up here. I suppressed that disgusted shiver and focused on the problem at hand. I had not expected to be restrained to a bed upon my arrival and thus I had to give my opponents credit for forethought. It would make my investigations much, much harder and make things a lot easier for the followers of the Cult of Cthulhu to do away with me.

My eyes darted around the room in search of a means to get out of these leather straps and I noted that there was at least one other method of restraint in the chamber. Iron chains hung loosely from the adjacent wall above the side of my bed and I could see a rusty color staining the manacles left behind by the last occupant in his desperate attempts to get free. To my left and across the chamber was a covered chamber pot that was nothing more than a hole in the ground with a seat and where I suspected the foul smell was coming from. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and wished for an open window to this chamber to air out the room at least.

In front of me or beyond the foot of my bed to the left was an iron door with enough locks that gave me pause to worry. Even if I managed to get out of my restraints there was the matter of picking all those locks fast enough to flee the room. I had to give the hospital credit for building this place like a prison. But I was confident, despite what I saw, that I could escape this place when the time came. For now, I focused on my restraints and tested the strength of them.

They were tight, thick and strong.

I was not going anywhere any time soon that was for certain. Sighing, I relaxed against the bed and waited for my _doctor_ to arrive. I did not have to wait long though. After what felt like half the day passing me by, I had no means to tell the time, not even a window graced this room; the locks to my prison door clicked and clanged before the oil-less hinges screeched with an ear splitting sound as the iron door was finally opened.

Three men entered the chamber, two of which were orderlies whose purpose was to see to it that I behaved while their third companion, the doctor, examined or treated me for my _condition_. The doctor introduced himself as Doctor Nicohlai Ivanson, a psychologist who specialized in the mental disorders that caused visual and auditory delusions. Seeing that I was coherent enough, he explained to me that I was suffering from schizophrenia and that Doctor Watson and Inspector Lestrade had requested that I be committed for evaluation.

I could see the lie for what it was but did not allow that truth to be known to the doctor. "You're one of them!" I had spat in a feigned, frightened rage that all past victims involved in this case had shown after the occult had gotten their hands on them. "An Old One returned!"

Ivanson sighed softly as if he was both irritated and amused by my display of insanity and I wondered if I had overplayed my role. He then graced me with a most disturbing smile as he held up a syringe and a bottle and immediately I knew I was in danger. As he filled the medical device with the appropriate dosage and then pricked my pock marked arm with it, he softly whispered to me how big of a fool I was even as I struggled to get my arm away from the drug he was pumping into my system.

"You claim to believe that now, Mister Holmes," said he and my eyes widened. He had seen through my ruse! "But rest assured you will soon come to believe it with the same certainty of your own existence."

"Never!" I hissed at him in a futile show of defiance and he only shook his head. The last of the drug was pumped into my arm and he removed the syringe before forcing my head back to gauge my reaction to the stimulant.

"This is no sedative that I have given you, Mister Holmes," Ivanson said. "It is an... experimental concoction created by my fellow believers, one that will tear away at every barrier you've erected around that precious mind of yours and reduce you to a babbling lunatic. With the proper stimuli, I can have you chanting _'__Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn'_[2]and be quite willing to offer yourself as a sacrifice to the Great Old Ones."

Bullocks!

My plan to have the occultists here to believe that I was already under the affect of the hallucinogenic drug and thus allow me free reign to investigate their part in this whole case had just gone out the window. As the drug began taking hold over my senses, I realized too late that I had gotten in way over my head with this case. My only regret is not confiding with someone about my scheme and I feared that there would be no Watson to come to my rescue this time.

Doctor Ivanson and his two orderlies left me to my imagination and the hallucinations that were already beginning to manifest itself all around me. At first it started with an auditory illusion and I started at the sound of something wet and rubbery, slithering from my left. Against my will, my mind focused on the sound and tried to pinpoint where it was coming from until I had come to the conclusion that whatever the source was, it was emitting from the chamber pot.

I willed myself to look away and closed my eyes as I struggled to fight the drug's effects. If I thought that my efforts would have lessened the torment, I had been sorely mistaken then. In fact, all it had done was merely heighten my state of fear as the auditory illusion grew louder and closer and my mind began to imagine what exactly was happening to my left.

Oh God, help me!

Whatever it was, and I had a fairly good idea, had finally gotten close enough that I swore I could really feel it's wet, slimy and scaly tentacle upon my arm and body as it felt around and slithered across me. "Do not look! Do not look!" I repeated under my breath, using the mantra to strengthen my will to resist the drug. I knew that if I looked, I would see what I was actually imagining behind my closed eyelids and I would panic.

I cursed myself for all the research I had done these last few days on the occult and their religion. Images of strange writings and grotesque depictions and paragraphs of horrific descriptions were fueling this drug and no matter how hard I tried to visualize some other, more earthly horror, the illusions of Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth and the Hell their followers planned to bring to Earth dominated my mind.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" I heard whispered in my ear and I cringed, stiff as a board as the tentacle wormed its way across my body. The alien language repeated itself in my head and I could hear the grotesque, gurgling voice of the deity that my imagination had given it. It sounded like someone was trying to speak with blood having pooled in their mouth.

I soon made the mistake of opening my eyes and saw the twisted visage of one of the Old Ones hovering over my restrained body. His head was like that of a squid with a beard of tentacles and feelers while the rest of his body was wet and covered in reptilian scales. Adorning his back were massive dragon-like wings and each of his limbs ended with enormous, black claws. He spoke to me in that same watery voice, telling me to embrace his faith and sacrifice myself so that I could bring about his return and a new age to man, an age where men relished on the ecstasy of murder and moral decay and the freedoms that anarchy could only grant.

I found that I was petrified at the sight before me. A sound so foreign to me penetrated the illusion and caused it to fade into nothingness, but the fear of its proximity and promises still permeated my soul as the sound continued to hammer in my skull and against my ears. It persisted even as the illusions returned and manifested into other grotesque monstrosities ranging from the squid like deities themselves all the way to my Watson covered in blood with an expression twisted with rage and the thrill of murder on his face.

Only when I felt my throat had become sore and dry did I realize what that persistent, throbbing sound had been.

It was the sound of my voice screaming in insane terror.

* * *

[1] Bethlehem Hospital is the actual name for Bedlam.

[2] The chant "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" translated into English means "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

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_Well it looks like Holmes has bit off more than he could chew this time! Silly detective thinking he could pull the wool over the Cult of Cthulhu and catch them red handed!_


	20. Insanity IV

_Continuation from the last. We're back to Watson's POV. *grabs a shield* Now lets not throw tomatoes at me. I'm writing as fast as I can. :D_

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**Insanity**

It has been a week since the incident at the warehouse and Holmes had been taken away to Bedlam after my and Lestrade's insistence that he needed help. But ever since that fateful day as I had watched my friend be taken away to be committed to an insane asylum, I have had my doubts about the whole thing. Those doubts grew when I had tried to visit the deranged detective and I had been told that unless I had a governor's order to visit, I could not see my friend.

Then through Mycroft I was able to obtain such an order and Doctor Ivanson had told me that a visit was not possible at the time I tried to see Holmes, citing that the patient was undergoing treatment that which I would not like to be privy of for both his and my own sake. The third time I tried to visit that week I was finally able to see him but unfortunately not speak to him. Holmes had been placed under heavy sedation not long ago, the orderlies explaining that the detective had tried to harm himself.

I had to see for myself and I saw the wounds of a suicide attempt on his wrists when I had unwrapped them. Yet after knowing Holmes all these years and being his associate on cases, I had learned a few things about the man and his trade. One being that Holmes was not inclined to end his life because his mind was rebelling against him; and the second thing that gave me cause to suspect not all is as it seemed were the wounds themselves. They were angled wrong, as if someone else had deliberately cut them with a razor. If Holmes had been responsible the cuts would have been angled inward and towards him, instead they were angled outward and away.

I had narrowed my eyes at the evidence but said nothing to the orderlies and rewrapped my friend's wrists before giving the hospital staff a show of a depressed friend sighing with a heaviness borne of those with guilt. Although I intended for it to be an act, not all of it was. I _had_ been responsible for putting him in such a situation where the staff was harming him rather than helping him. I spoke to Holmes unconscious form for a few minutes longer before the orderlies told me my time was up and I had to leave.

The fourth time I returned to the hospital, I came unannounced and incognito. Through one of my own patients I had learned that there was a relative of theirs currently being treated at Bedlam and after explaining my suspicions to Mycroft, I was able to obtain yet another order to allow me to see Jeremy Hawthorne. With some help from Missus Hudson and Holmes own makeup, I was able to change my appearance from a mouse brown with a mustache to a dark brown, almost black with no mustache but with mutton chops instead.

So by the time I arrived the staff and the doctor were completely unawares of who I was or what my intentions were as they escorted me to my _friend_.

Prior to my visit though, I had gone back down to the docks and visited the warehouse where Holmes and I had originally intended to confront the occult and I ended up sleeping fifteen minutes of the ordeal with a nice sized goose egg on the back of my head as a memento. What I found in the warehouse initially baffled me and I had spent the remainder of the day trying to piece together what exactly had happened that day here.

Even an untrained observer could tell this warehouse looked like it had not been used in years.

There was not a single sign of the occult's presence there. No wax indicating where candles have been burning or chalk effigies to show where demonic artwork had been drawn. No blood pools where a sacrifice would have been made and no lingering scent of the hallucinogenic essence that would have been burned. I did not even find a trap door hidden anywhere in the building. This building was nothing more than an abandoned warehouse.

So why then had Holmes been terrified out of his mind and bleeding from his head?

I could only draw to one conclusion and it miffed me that he would do this to me _**again**_. If he had not been my friend and I had not truly cared about him, I would have given in to my anger and let him rot in that hospital and telling myself that he was indeed crazy and deserved to be there! For only the insane would deceive their friends into committing them to an asylum!

So now, hours later, I found myself in the chamber of a very disturbed Jeremy Hawthorne who was looking at me as if he did not know me, which was true, and I wondering what exactly I was getting myself into. My escorts had left me alone with him and had not bothered to guard the door outside like they had when Doctor Watson had visited Sherlock Holmes. A fact which I was all the more grateful for. It would make sneaking to Holmes cell all the more easier.

Now I just had to get to his cell unnoticed.

Easier said than done. There were three separate incidences that I almost had gotten caught by the orderlies that wandered the great stone halls of the hospital. If it had not been for the fact that it was quiet enough for me to hear coming footsteps I would not have had the time to duck into a side room, alcove or corridor in time. After the third near miss, I had decided to find some appropriate clothing so I could move more freely throughout the halls.

It did not take me long to find an open doctor's office on the floor that I was on and procure a medical coat, some pens and a notepad for the pocket and a stethoscope to hang around my neck. Just in case I ran in to trouble and my disguise did not pass, I took a couple syringes and filled them with enough morphine to knock a fully grown man out within seconds of administration to the neck. Fortunately for me most of the orderlies were too use to seeing a doctor wandering the halls at this hour or were too unobservant to look closer as to who I was.

One would come to think that the staff who worked here would be familiar with who was who.

Regardless I was grateful that my _mission_ to reach Holmes went without any trouble from the people who worked here. I only started once when one of the committed patients had leapt at his own door, babbling nonsense at me through the barred window when I had passed too close. I had given the deranged man a glare and glanced about for anyone who might have witnessed the exchange only to find that I was alone in the hall. Eventually I found my way to Holmes cell and was pleased to find it devoid of any guards. I could only assume that they figured Holmes was too secured in his restraints and sedatives to require any guarding.

If they had known Holmes like I had, they would have kept him under guard just to be safe.

When I came to the door and looked in, I saw Holmes was awake but not restrained to his bed like I had expected him to be. Instead he was chained to the wall but had plenty of slack to move a few feet from the bed or lay somewhat comfortably on it. I glared angrily at the sight before me and would have yanked the door off its hinges if I could have. Instead I found myself facing another problem.

The various locks that kept Holmes imprisoned in his cell.

Silently I cursed under my breath and glanced down either end of the hallway for any orderlies before kneeling down in front of the keyholes. I had not come unprepared and I knew I would have to face with this problem without any of the keys so I had taken the precaution to bring Holmes lockpicks with me. Now I will admit that I am not the best lock picker in the trade, but Holmes had taught me the rudimentary basics of the task and saw to it that I practiced the skill until I could pick the most basic locks with ease and the more complicated ones with a bit of time.

One by one as the seconds ticked by I worked my way through the locks and by the time the last tumblers clicked over, almost ten minutes had passed since I first began picking the first lock. Quickly I put away the tools and opened the door, grimacing as the ear splitting sound of metal grinding against metal echoed down the stone corridor before I closed the door again behind me. I did not hear the tumblers fall back into place and was glad that I would not have to pick my way back out.

I let go of the breath I was holding before I turned around to face my dearest friend who was now sitting up on the bed and watching me with a wary fear of an animal uncertain if I was a predator or not. I do not know what they had done to him, but I did not like to see him in such a sorry state. He looked like he had not slept in days or even had been fed a proper meal in just as long. Bags sagged under his eyes and his pallor was so pale from the lack of nutrition I deeply worried for his health.

"You look marvelous," said I while cautiously approaching my friend.

"You..." he croaked after a moment, his steel-gray eyes following my every movement no doubt calculating what he could do to escape and how he could do it. At least that is what I hoped he was thinking. It would mean that my friend was still in there despite having been subjected to the barbaric treatments of this facility for the last week. I will never forgive myself if Holmes came out of here as a broken man. "You sound like Watson, but... you do not look like him."

It pained me to hear him say those words. Before this whole business with the occult had begun, he would have seen through my disguise with ease. Now though, it seems his ability to see beyond the obvious had left him. That is until I saw him twitch and look away from me to scramble back against his bed and wall in reaction to something he had seen off to my right.

"Holmes?" I queried and approached him carefully.

"No! Stay away!" he shouted and kicked at whatever it was his mind had conjured up. For a moment I thought he really had gone insane and that what had happened at the warehouse had just been a figment of his imagination. But after a moment longer of him thrashing against whatever it was he was seeing and I holding him down so he didn't hurt himself and telling him it was alright, he calmed down and looked up at me in recognition. "Watson?"

"Yes, Holmes, it's me," said I, relieved that he finally realized who I was. I sat down next to him on the bed and he sat up. He still wore the wary expression of prey feeling in danger from a predator. "I tried seeing you three times this week but I have either been denied or you were sedated."

He snorted in contempt at that and I heard a sardonic cough of laughter escape him for a moment. "I am not surprised, my dear Watson. They did not want you to discover what they have been subjecting me to for these last several days. By the way what day is it exactly? As you can see I cannot track time in this dark cell of mine. No window or a clock for that matter."

I smiled softly at his observation, but there was no real humor behind it like there normally would have been under different circumstances. "It is Thursday, old chap. Tell me, what exactly have they been doing to you?"

He looked at me. "Drugging me with that infernal hallucinogen the occult uses on it's kidnapped victims. I have spent the last several days living in abject terror as every single nightmare and frightful thought came to life before my eyes. Mostly the delusions were those of the occults religion, still disturbing though."

"Have you been drugged recently?"

He nodded. "Yes, but it's starting to wear off elsewise I would be quite barmy right now."

"Good. Let me get you out of these," said I and reached into my pockets for Holmes lock picks. But before I could start undoing the manacles holding him to the wall, his ice cold hands gripped my wrists to stop me.

In a serious, desperate and conspiratorial tone he spoke to me. "There is no time for this, Watson!" he hissed and I felt his grip on my wrists tighten to the point that it was becoming unbearable. "You will not be able to get me out of here and all that will come from such an attempt will result you being committed here and subjected to the drug as well!"

"I cannot just walk away and leave you here to be tormented by these... these... who is tormenting you anyway?"

"Ivanson," he answered and finally let go of my wrists when he believed I would not try and free him. "You must go to his office and find my medical file and of those who had been committed here for similar delusions as my own. You remember the names, yes?"

I nodded in reply. "What am I suppose to do with those files?"

"Take them to Lestrade, of course!" he exclaimed a bit too loudly and both of us fell quiet as we listened for any sign of an orderly having heard his outburst. But after a minute it was determined safe to converse again, though much quieter this time. "Ivanson will have kept research notes on the drug's effectiveness in our files. Also look for any link between him and the occult in his office. He is a member, possibly one of the higher ranked priests."

"How do you know about all this?" I asked him and he sighed a bit impatiently at my ignorance. It was his own fault. If he had kept me informed as to the details of the case I would not be asking these questions.

"It is the reason why I had you commit me here, so I could break into his office from the inside." He grimaced at the mild glare I gave him for reminding me what I had been forced to do by his deception. "You must do this for me, Watson, only then will you be able to get me out of here!"

"You're bleeding lucky that I am a loyal friend, Holmes," I hissed at him and he gave me a wary smile borne from exhaustion, both physical and mental. "Do you know where I can find Ivanson's office?"

He grinned at me knowingly. "You have already found it, old chap."

I blinked and straightened at his claim and for another moment I thought perhaps the drug was still effecting his mind. "What?"

He gestured at the white medical coat I was wearing. "You're wearing his coat. The ink stain on the front pocket is the same one Ivanson had on his own. So unless you had encountered Ivanson and filched his coat from his unconscious body, you therefore had found a doctor's office and borrowed it from there."

"Good to see that your mental abilities have not left you," I said a bit humorously, the first bit of humor I felt since entering this bloody hospital. However it did not last as a shadow fell over his features and he sighed warily.

"If I am not out of here soon, I fear that they will leave me when this drug finally breaks me, Watson," said he, my own expression no doubt looked horrified at the thought of my friend being broken. "From what I understand through my own experiences, the drug is designed to effect the part of the brain that controls fear and reason for the most part. It causes the mind to believe that what it sees, hears and feels to be very real and terrifying regardless of how much you may be able to reason otherwise. Now, although this part is simple conjecture, I believe that once the subject has been exposed to these hallucinations long enough, the mind shatters, so to speak, in an attempt to protect itself and therefore the subject becomes vulnerable to outside suggestion."

"Such as victims willingly sacrificing themselves to these gods?" I concluded for him and Holmes nodded. "Holmes, I should be getting you out of here. Who knows how much longer you can take this before your own …"

He stopped my pleas with a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it firmly. "Watson. You can help me best by getting the Scotland Yard here. Once Lestrade has his warrant, he'll have the authority to arrest Ivanson and his thugs for orderlies and while he does that, you can then come and set me free."

I pursed my lips in frustration and I hated the fact that he was right. As he had said before if I tried to free him now all I would end up doing would be to cause my own confinement and torture here. Holmes did not want that for me and so he instead directed my energies and attention toward gathering evidence that could free him. I nodded once more to him and started to stand from the bed before I felt his hand catch my wrist again.

I glanced down at him. "Holmes?"

"Please do come back for me, John."

His plea gave me the final resolve and determination I would need to see to it that I did not fail in my mission to free him of this insanity.

* * *

_Yeah! Watson to the rescue! There are at least two more one-shots planned for this mini-series. One more from Lestrade and a final one from Holmes with a possible one from Watson if I can't fit everything in the those two._


	21. Insanity V

_Continuation from the last. From Lestrade's POV this time. We're almost to the end of this misadventure, hopefully Holmes can hold out for a while longer._

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**Insanity**

The clatter of hooves echoed across the cobblestone streets as the horses galloped along the police carriage I and Doctor Watson along with a couple other constables, including Clarke, were riding in the back of. We were busy preparing for the raid that was to come and I never thought that I would ever lead such a thing into a hospital that was built like a prison for the insane. The police were not suppose to raid prisons and yet, here I was with the friend of Sherlock Holmes doing exactly that just so we could save that barmy detective's arse.

Like the good Doctor, I too was quite angered at the thought of the detective deceiving us just so he could sneak in behind the lines of the enemy and gather the evidence he needed to end this wretched case. The only consolation I could take out of this whole ordeal is that Holmes suffered for his arrogance and over-confidence. It served him right, it did! But my good conscious could not allow him to continue to suffer even if he did deserve it half of the time.

With a click of the revolver barrel snapping into place, I glanced up at the Doctor who wore a determined expression that masked the quiet anger that lay underneath. I knew the anger he felt was not directed toward Mister Holmes but rather toward Doctor Ivanson for what the man had been doing to his friend as well as to several other patients committed to Bedlam.

It sickened me that someone who was suppose to up hold the Hippocratic Oath was abusing his position within Bedlam to torment people all for a more sick and twisted religious cause. If Doctor Watson had not come barging into my office disguised as a dark haired, mutton chopped, hospital doctor and carrying several incriminating files and a small journal with a golden pentagram with a squid head emblazoned on its cover, I would not have believed him. I am still reeling over the evidence the man had managed to filch from Ivanson's office.

"Can not this contraption go any faster?" my still dark-haired, mutton chopped companion demanded most impatiently after checking and rechecking his own revolver for the thousandth time since we left Scotland Yard.

"Patience, Doctor," I answered him. "Ivanson is not going anywhere..."

"It's not Ivanson that I am worried about, Inspector," the Doctor cut me off irritably and I could feel the concern that the former soldier was feeling toward his... our friend. Sherlock Holmes may be annoying, snooty even, and may take jibes at me and my colleagues, but I have, over the years, grown to accept that part of him and see past the insufferable arrogance for the brilliance and the person whom he was that lay behind the cold mask.

"Of course," said I while studying the Doctor. He looked tired and worn, no doubt the result of the last few nights without a decent sleep because he worried for his friend whom he had committed to the asylum which we were now going to rescue him from. "Holmes is a survivor. He'll fight them to the last, he will."

"That is what I am worried most about," Watson replied with a heavy sigh as he fingered the revolver in his hands. "They had said he tried to commit suicide once, Lestrade. But I know Holmes, he wouldn't do that. So that makes me wonder what exactly had happened to have had his wrists slashed by them? Did he manage to thwart their attempts to drug him again and they punished him? Did he manage to get free of the cell only to be caught again? What else have they been doing to him besides doping him up with that hallucinogen?"

"Was it not in his medical file?" I asked and tried to recall what the file had said. The doctor shook his head lightly.

"No. Ivanson was smart enough to leave the more... questionable practices out of Holmes file. Hell, even the evidence of the 'new drug' could be argued as nothing more than a doctor testing a new medicine on his patients."

"Fortunately you found that journal as well, Doctor," I said and straightened my posture as the carriage began to slow when we neared the hospital. "Which detailed the effects of said drug on his patients, among numerous other things that I can barely comprehend, let alone believe, were going on in this city and the asylum."

A moment later the horses outside, pulling the Maria, cantered to a halt at the insistence of the constable driving them. "We're here, Inspector," said the constable and I stood up to open the back of the carriage before jumping out and turning to help the Doctor out as well. He ignored my offered hand and jumped down with the same ease as a healthy man. Sometimes I forget that his war wounds do not always bother him like he claims in his stories.

"Right then, you lot stay here," said I, taking immediate control over the constables that came pouring out of the two carriages I had brought for this raid. I do not know what to expect in the asylum so I did not wish to come unprepared in terms of manpower. For all I knew the entire staff could be in league with Ivanson. Hopefully it will just be the doctor and a couple orderlies that worked with the man.

I turned to face the stone masonry building once I was done issuing orders to my troops, to see in time Doctor Watson marching through the wide double doors of the hospital. "Doctor!" I shouted but he ignored me to continue through the doors. Irritated that he would not listen to me, I quickly called to Clarke and the rest of the men that would follow me inside and chased after the heels of the former army surgeon.

"I am here on official police business and you will release Mister Sherlock Holmes immediately!" growled the irate doctor to the receptionist that had the misfortune to be working this night and thus had to deal with my uncompromising companion. I placed an arm on his shoulder as I stepped up to the two and immediately the Doctor calmed down under my touch once he realized he had the official police force as backup at last.

"I am Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard," said I while producing the court order that would give me free reign throughout this hospital in search of Doctor Ivanson and his accomplices, not to mention to remove any surviving patients from the care of Bedlam. Though what I was going to do with them was beyond me. "I have a warrant for the arrest of Doctor Nicholai Ivanson and any individuals who have aided him in kidnapping, murder and illegal medical practices. Now we can do this the hard way or the easy way, it is up to you, Miss."

The lady sputtered in nervousness and nodded at my words before handing over a spare set of keys to the hospital. "Doctor Ivanson is with a patient that is currently undergoing electroconvulsive therapy."

"Which patient?!" my companion snapped the moment the receptionist had informed us of what Ivanson was doing. It was not that difficult for me to put two and two together and figure out which patient Ivanson was most likely electrocuting at this very moment.

"I... I do not know!" cried the woman behind the desk as she cowered back from my angry friend. "He only asked that the ECT chamber be prepared for a patient of his."

"Holmes..." breathed the Doctor and I hurried after him as he rushed through the glass doors and into the inner sanctum of the hospital.

I had no clue as to where we were going and hoped that Doctor Watson did. With several of my men behind me, I followed the near panicked friend of Mister Holmes up a flight of stairs and down several corridors until we came upon a locked door and he peered inside through the barred window.

"No... he's not here!" Watson exclaimed and I took a look for myself. There were signs that the cell had been occupied, the bed was rumpled and the chains were draped over it carelessly. But there was no sign of Mister Holmes anywhere inside. As Watson had concluded, the man was not here. "You!" I heard him shout behind me and I turned in time to see him manhandle one of the orderlies up against the stone wall. "Where is the ECT chamber?"

"It's... in the north wing on the basement floor!" cried the man in fearful panic. I could not blame the man for feeling terrified of Doctor Watson. The surgeon had a look in his eye that said he would kill any man that got in his way or harmed his friend further. Even I was feeling afraid, but not for myself, but for Ivanson and his men. I knew what the man was capable of whenever Mister Holmes found himself in a difficult and harmful situation. The Doctor was protective of his friend and I knew without a doubt that the former soldier would venture into Hell and back for the eccentric detective.

"Take us there, now!" he commanded and the orderly nodded helplessly before being shoved forward by the Doctor. "Quickly or so help me God if I find my friend dead, you will join him!"

I stepped up to the Doctor's side as the frightened man trotted ahead of us back down the corridor we had come. "Doctor..."

"If you're going to lecture me about threatening people, Inspector, you are wasting your breath," the Doctor said in a clipped tone that left little room for me to willingly argue with him. But that was not why I wanted his attention. I would gladly help him punish any of these blackguards if we found Mister Holmes gone from this world forever.

"No, Doctor," said I and scowled at the back of the orderly's head as he lead us across the hospital compound once we had reached the ground floor. "I wanted to say that we will reach Mister Holmes in time."

He glanced back at me for a moment and I could barely see a wary smile register on his face at the confidence I had boasted before him. We both knew that there was a good chance that we might not make it in time to save the detective from Ivanson's insanity.

* * *

_Oh my Lord... Watson and Lestrade had better hurry in rescuing Holmes from Ivanson! Next up is Holmes turn and we'll get to see what exactly that mad doctor is doing to him! Just hold on, old boy, Watson is coming!_


	22. Insanity VI

_Continued from the last... This one is from Holmes POV and alas is not the last one. Watson wanted the conclusion of this tale._

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**Insanity**

After my Watson had left me alone in the cell with the squid like thing at the foot of my bed, I was amazed at how well I had managed to control my terror and imagination long enough to appear sensible and sane to my dearest friend. I knew that if I had lost it completely in front of him I would not have been able to convince him to ransack Ivanson's office for evidence and then work to set me free from this Hellish place. He would have seen nothing more than a broken friend who had lost his mind to the drugs of the occult, an illusion I had wanted my Watson to believe in and had come completely and utterly true because I had underestimated my opponents.

The chains bound to me clinked and clanked against each other as I scrambled backwards and further into the wrought iron headboard behind me in my attempt to place distance between myself and the tiny creature my drugged mind had concocted. It hissed and gurgled at me before one of its feelers lashed out and wrapped around my bare ankle. I cried out in terror and tried to dislodge the despicable thing and only managed in entangling my ankle and calf further in it's tentacle.

It slurped its way up my leg and in my frantic efforts to get away, I kicked at it with my free leg. A sudden pain washed up my leg from my ankle and although the rational part of my mind knew what had happened, my irrational part only conjured an image of the squid monster raising a stinger like tail that stabbed down into my ankle quite painfully and injecting its venom into my system. I could see a throbbing beat coursing down its tail and through the stinger lodged into my flesh as it forced its deadly poison in to my person.

My screams were slowly dying as the _venom_ worked on my nervous system and I could feel my whole body become numb and something wet and warm trickled from my ears, but my mind only perceived it as tentacles from another monster above me softly caressing my face. The world around me was starting to close in on me and light soon became darkness as I lost consciousness, something which I was wholeheartedly grateful for and which I silently thanked whatever God resided in the Heavens above.

Unconsciousness, for once in my life, was a blessing and one I was not going to fight despite the drug telling me to. It was not like I could even if I wanted to. My mind had over exerted itself, the terror I was feeling and the images I had seen had become too much for a mind even as great as my own to continue to comprehend and withstand. So it did the only thing it could do.

It shut down to protect itself.

Unfortunately that was one of the designs of the drug. When I would wake up next I could only hope that Ivanson would not come to realize that the drug had managed to tear down my protective barriers and left me vulnerable to suggestion. But for now I would count my blessings and enjoy the relief from the hallucinations as much as possible for at least in unconsciousness, one does not dream. No dreams meant no nightmares for me and there was nothing I needed to fear or worry over in such a sweet oblivion.

Though perhaps I should have at least worried.

I probably would never know how long I had swam in that endless sea of darkness. To me it could have been for twenty years like old man Van Winkle or simply a mere twenty seconds. But one thing I did know was that I was not awakening at my own will. Something most annoying was pricking at my arm and at first my mind thought it was some kind of insect come to sting me until that insect spoke in a garbled English.

My eyes snapped open wide at the familiar, stinging pain of a syringe needle poking through the flesh of my arm and I sat up immediately to try and stop the villain from injecting more of the drug into my system. I had found relief in darkness and apparently enough time had passed for my body to get rid of the drug again. I did not want it back in me once more.

I did not want to face my nightmares again!

"Hold him!" snapped the doctor who had been making my life a living Hell for the last week. One of the orderlies that always accompanied him, rushed forward and pushed me back down against the bed, his arm pressing against my jugular and thus effectively cutting off my flow of air. I choked as I tried to resist these nefarious villains but the drug, neglect and abuse I had been subjected to had left me far weaker than I would have liked and there was very little I could do to stop Ivanson from injecting me.

As soon as the deed was done, the orderly choking me released his hold on me and I coughed for sweet air while they stood back to observe me. I rolled onto my side and groaned in misery, my eyes were closed as I dreaded the return of the Old Ones and numerous other nightmares, among them a deranged and blood covered Doctor Watson. But either God was indeed real and decided to show me mercy after years of blasphemy or the delusions were not going to come at all.

I should have heard something by now.

It took me only a couple minutes to realize that something was wrong with me. My mouth felt like there was cotton stuffed in it and my tongue was heavy. My entire body felt numb and I barely registered the removal of the restraints on my wrists. Whatever Ivanson had injected into me, it was not his experimental hallucinogen.

A mild sedative perhaps then?

It would explain why they had to half drag me off the bed and into a waiting wooden wheelchair. Where were they taking me? What was Ivanson planning to do with me? A new fear rose up from the pit of my stomach at the thought of whatever fate he had in store for me came to my tired mind; and despite the sedative, I managed to put up a pathetic struggle that it took them a few seconds longer to restrain me to the chair. Even after I was restrained I tried to get out of the leather straps without success.

"Now, now, Mister Holmes," Ivanson said from next to me, his voice sounding garbled to my ears, a side effect of the sedative no doubt. "You are going to only hurt yourself before we can bring you to your treatment."

Everything sounded dull to me, from the creak of the chair underneath me, to the breathing of the orderly pushing me and to the footsteps on stone walking around me. And although words were coming to my ears dull and slurred, I could still clearly understand it all.

Albeit slower than I would have liked.

What I heard though, I hoped I had been mistaken.

"Haha! Darkness, darkness! Eternal darkness for the sleepy one!" cried one of the patients to my left and when I tried to lift my head to look at him as we exited my cell and passed him, the world blurred and spun and made my stomach churn disagreeably with me. I tried to focus on the unkempt face of my fellow prisoner as he pressed it up against the window bars of his door and stuck his arms out to try and reach my group. "Never wake up again, you won't. No! Hehe! Oh no! Hahahaha! No one ever wakes up again from the darkness!"

"Shut up you!" One of the orderlies clapped his sap against the window bars and the crazed patient retreated back, but he did not quiet despite the man's attempt to shut him up.

"Darkness, darkness! Eternal darkness..." I continued to hear until even his voice became muffled from the distance and the sedative in my system. Instinct was telling me that the crazed man knew something I did not and even as I puzzled over his cryptic words, I knew deep down that if my Watson did not return with Lestrade soon, I was going to be greeted with a different kind of darkness compared to the last one.

A darkness I would never wake up from.

I must have said something as we descended down a pair of cold looking stone stairs for Ivanson spoke to me in amusement. "What was that Mister Holmes?" He leaned down into my face while he waited for an orderly to open the heavy wooden door at the bottom of the stairs and I tried to meet his confident, but angry gaze. "Curious to know what treatment I have in store for you are we? Well do not fret, you do not have long to wait. In fact we're about there."

I was wheeled down the dank corridor of what I concluded to be the basement of the hospital. The only lighting in the corridor was from the gas lamps and it was dreadfully cold and dreary down here, not to mention dark as well. The orderly pushing on my wheelchair continued through the now open wooden door and I desperately tried to fight the sedative that was in my system. Although Ivanson had not given me enough to knock me unconscious, a fact that my muddled brain is still reeling over, he had given me just enough to make me cooperative for whatever nefarious scheme he had in mind. A scheme my instincts were telling me that I needed to fight the sedative and escape _now_.

For my instincts knew that if I did not get away from Ivanson, I would do so in a way that I would not like at all.

"Here we are," said the dastardly doctor as we stopped before another wooden and iron door. He removed a set of keys from his coat pocket and unlocked the chamber and my eyes focused on a brass plate embedded into the stonewall next to it. Electroconvulsive Therapy Room B21? "Ah, still as observant as ever despite the drug I gave you?" I must have shown my realization as to what he intended for me. I could feel the blood draining from my face in horror at the fate that awaited for me and despite the drug, I struggled against my restraints.

To Ivanson my display of resistance no doubt looked pathetic and weak. I felt pathetic and weak but the fear of being electrocuted to death was an enough motivator to fight the sedative in my system. Unfortunately for me, and I curse at whatever deities there are, it was going to take more than just will power to save my life from this anarchist madman.

As the orderlies wheeled me into the chamber, I stopped struggling to focus on my surroundings as best as I could. The chamber swam before me but I was able to make out a few objects and the size of the room before I was removed from the wooden wheelchair and strapped onto the center object. The room was rather large with no windows. The place was lit with a few of the rare electrical lamps and lining one of the walls from ceiling to floor were electrical ducts that fed the wiring from whatever generator this institution had, to the electrical chair that I was now strapped onto. On the right side of the chair where Ivanson stood turning knobby knobs and oversized switches was the console that controlled the flow of electricity from the generator to the chair and which would either fry my brain or my entire body.

I was certain that Ivanson was looking forward to the latter.

I was not.

Even if he did not turn my body into an unrecognizable, blackened crisp, there was a good chance that I would die by another means and still be alive... in a sense. This therapy was designed to 'shock' the insanity out of a patient. The end result more often than not turned out to be a partial or complete wipe of the mind, resulting in patients being cured of their affliction but also losing who they were in the process. Skills, talents, even memories were lost.

_'The cure worked, but we've lost the patient,'_ came to mind.

"Now Mister Holmes," I heard Ivanson say from my right and I struggled to turn my head in his direction so I could see him but the leather and metal strap held it in place so that I could only look forward. I tested my restraints and found them as confining and tight as the ones used on my cell bed. "Before I... _cure_ you of your mental illness, I would like you to understand why you are going through this particular _therapy_ rather than the previous ones again."

I already knew why but I gave the man the chance to explain. The longer it took for him to murder me, the sooner Watson and Scotland Yard could come and rescue me. Assuming, of course, they are even coming at all. I could not doubt Watson, but Lestrade and his colleagues, however, my mind questioned most annoyingly. They had the most impeccable of habits to arrive at a scene when it is too late.

"It seems that I find myself in a most precarious of situations, Mister Holmes," Ivanson continued when I did not respond to his statement earlier. He walked away from the control box to move into my field of vision and stood before me. As he spoke, he double checked my restraints before reaching over and grabbed a wet sponge from a water basin next to the chair, "This evening after I had finished making my rounds I find myself standing in a ransacked office with several of my files and a personal journal missing. Is that too cold for you, Mister Holmes? A shame."

He had thoroughly soaked my head with the wet sponge and I had failed to suppress a shiver as the cold liquid poured down my from skull over the rest of my body. Ivanson smiled wickedly at my discomfort before reaching up to bring down the electrical probes to either side of my head. I gave him a weak glare and he merely chuckled at my defiance before continuing.

"Anyhow, I could only draw to one conclusion as to what had happened and what has become of such incriminating evidence against me. You have had a colleague, no doubt Doctor Watson, break in to my office and make off with my papers to the authorities." Ivanson walked out of my vision once more and my eyes darted toward the wooden doors in the hopes that Watson and Lestrade would come bursting through them to stop the madman. But they did not and as the seconds passed, my hopes were quickly dwindling to a point that I was coming to believe that they were not coming at all.

_He promised,_ the thought invaded my desperate mind. _He said he would always have my back, that he would come for me. Why is he not here? Watson?_

"So I am left with only one option," continued the doctor, his hand resting on the large switch that would end my illustrious career here and now, forever. "Since you are a key witness to my... experiments, it only makes sense to remove that witness. Without you, I will probably only be sentenced for witchcraft and devil worshiping rather than for murder and unlawful medical practices. A sentence, mind you, that is only a couple years long compared to the eternity of death.

"I thought," I groaned from the chair, "that to die for the Old Ones was considered a great honor among your kind?"

"Oh it is, sir," said he mockingly, "but one cannot serve the Old Ones and their agenda as a rotting corpse now can I?"

"You will still be hanged," I defied and he laughed.

"On what charge?"

"Murder."

He laughed again and favored me the look of a school teacher trying to educate a dense child of something he had overlooked in his studies. "Murder of whom? Surely you do not presume that I would _murder_ you, Mister Holmes? Oh no, that would not go well for me. Rather, I intend to wipe your mind of your memories and blame it as the unfortunate result of the therapy. You will be alive, but nor can you testify against me. Say good..."

His words were interrupted by a shout and the wooden door slamming open. I felt my eyes widen as I saw who had interrupted my _murder_ and I cried out his name in desperation and jubilation, "Watson!"

"You are too late!"

* * *

_No! Watson cannot be! Holmes!_

_My apologies for another cliffhanger, but Watson says this is the perfect place to end this part and pick up with his POV._


	23. Insanity VII

_And now the conclusion to Insanity... Will Watson rescue Holmes in time from Ivanson's madness? You're going to hate me. *__puts on armor__*_

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**Insanity**

The orderly I had forced to take us to the electroconvulsive chamber had done his task to the letter and Lestrade and I soon found ourselves standing just outside of said room, glaring at the wooden doors that bared us entry. Despite the thickness of the wood and the stone walls, we could still hear what was going on inside and it made my blood run cold both with anger and with fear.

"_I thought,"_ I could hear through the door Holmes groan in a drowsy voice (sedated perhaps?), _"that to die for the Old Ones was considered a great honor among your kind?"_

"_Oh it is, sir,"_ replied the mad doctor mockingly, _"but one cannot serve the Old Ones and their agenda as a rotting corpse now can I?"_ A part of me was quite willing to see to it that the man did continue his service as a rotting corpse either by my own hand or by the hand of Justice instead. Either way, Ivanson was not going to live for very much longer after this.

"_You will still be hanged,"_ I could hear Holmes say in defiance and Ivanson laughed.

"_On what charge?"_

"_Murder."_

Ivanson laughed again and I swear I could hear his mocking tone as he spoke to Holmes again, as if trying to correct an naïve child of a false perception. _"Murder of whom? Surely you do not presume that I would murder you, Mister Holmes? Oh no, that would not go well for me. Rather, I intend to wipe your mind of your memories and blame it as the unfortunate result of the therapy." _I have had heard enough and one glance at Lestrade so had he. The inspector nodded in my direction and I returned the unspoken support with a curt nod of my own before cocking my revolver and taking a few steps back as Ivanson continued to speak.

"_You will be alive, but nor can you testify against me. Say good..." _I took a twisted satisfaction in interrupting the madman when I and Clarke both kicked the door in, my foot smarting after the attempt but I ignored the pain to quickly take in the situation in the chamber. Holmes was strapped to an electrical chair looking half awake and half frightened out of his wits though he was hiding it rather well. I knew him well enough to recognize when he was afraid. I could not blame him.

To lose one's mind was as frightening as dying.

"Watson!" my friend cried in jubilant relief and I turned my revolver on the doctor as Lestrade and the constables we had picked up along the way here began to fill the room quickly. They went for the orderlies immediately, the men in white backing away as far as they could with their hands up in surrender.

"You are too late!" exclaimed Ivanson and I could see why. His hand was on the switch, ready to flip it and end my friend's existence.

Time seemed to have slowed around me. Although I could hear the constables struggling with Ivanson's lackeys behind me and Lestrade trying to reach Holmes in time, for me everything was dulled and blurred as I raised my revolver to stop Ivanson before he could throw the switch. I heard rather than saw the report of my revolver exploding in my hand, it sounding quite dulled to my ears as if it had been shot from under water. I knew what this experience was, it was something that I often had dealt with back in my days in Afghanistan. Events would appear to slow down around you as your mind tried to comprehend what was happening and although things were happening in real time, to the person affected it felt like an eternity and you feel helpless and sluggish and your mind cries for you to move faster.

Especially when lives are at stake.

Fortunately that false perception only lasts for a few precious seconds and everything speeds up again and sometimes you wished it would have lasted a little longer, believing that if time had slowed just a few seconds more you could have made the difference that would have saved lives. Time was cruel that way.

"No!!" I cried as my bullet slammed into Ivanson's chest and he jerked back against the console but his hand had not budged from the switch. As his body began to fall, his hand took the switch with him, a triumphant and twisted grin on his face at my failure. I rushed forward without a second thought and reached for his gripping hand as the lights in the chamber dimmed all around us. I could smell the burning of flesh and hear Holmes cry out for the brief few seconds Ivanson managed to send electricity through my friend.

I wasted no time in flipping the switch back and turning to my restrained friend. As soon as the chair was off, Lestrade quickly pulled away the electrodes from Holmes skull and began unstrapping him.

"He's not breathing!" the inspector cried as he hurried to get Holmes free of the dastardly device. As soon as the last restraint was removed, I had Holmes laid across the stone floor and began checking his vitals.

"Come on, Holmes, please don't let us be too late," I begged of him while my fingers were pressed to his wrist and then to his neck in search of a pulse. After a moment I felt the tell-tale flutter of a weak pulse but it was enough to let me know he still lived. For the moment. He was still not breathing, however, and that was something I needed to rectify now.

The healer in me knew what to do and I pushed Lestrade aside to give both myself and Holmes room before I began to apply The Silvester Method[1] in an attempt to resuscitate my friend. Although I had my doubts about the technique, I had heard from others that it had actually worked in restoring breathing to drowned victims and I could only hope that it would work in my friend's case where his lungs simply ceased to function due to an outside force and not because of water filling them.

I had Lestrade keep track of time while I applied the method sixteen times a minute, bringing Holmes arms above his head before bringing them back to compress against his chest firmly. The technique was suppose to artificially stimulate his lungs into breathing again and after five minutes after respiratory failure, according to the doctor who designed this technique, and respiration has not been restored then the victim has passed on.

"Doctor," said Lestrade as I continued to apply the technique to my friend and muttering under my breath how big of a fool he was and that if he did not start breathing I threatened numerous things upon him, including having Missus Hudson come into his room and clean it. I did not feel the comforting hand on my shoulder as the inspector continued to try to get my attention. "It's been five minutes, Watson."

"No!" I growled, refusing to believe that Doctor Silvester was right about the length of the window between life and death. "No! He is not gone! I refuse to believe that, Lestrade! Holmes, dammit, breathe!"

And if as in answer to my threats and demands, the man laying before me suddenly gave a hacking cough and curled up into himself as he took in several lungfuls of air. I cried out in relief and joy at the success of the technique and made a mental note to add my support to it later. I placed a supporting hand on my friend's shoulder as he continued to catch his breath before helping him up into a sitting position.

"Holmes?" I inquired of him and he opened his eyes to blink at me in a bit of confusion. That worried me. "Holmes, you are still in there I hope?"

"Of course I am, why wouldn't I be?" answered he and I blinked in reply. He gave me a confused look before taking in his surroundings. "Where are we?"

"You... don't remember?" Had Ivanson truly succeeded in his attempt to wipe Holmes memory?

"The last thing I remember is clocking you on the head with your cane in the docks," he said as his gaze fell on Ivanson and then Lestrade and the constables that held the orderlies prisoner. "I take it that I had been committed to Bedlam and that my plan had not gone as well as I hoped? In fact... from what I've seen here, the gentleman I was after has attempted to murder me or at least succeeded in wiping some of my memories since I cannot remember anything after the docks?"

Holmes reeled back in a painful cry as my fist connected with his jaw and he laid sprawled on the floor with a hand nursing the bruise that would surely be forming soon. "You are an idiot. Do you know how damned lucky you are, Holmes?"

"Apparently a great deal," he quipped back at me and looked to Lestrade and Clarke for support against my risen temper. I had every reason to be mad at him and he knew it despite the fact that he could not remember these last several days since he began this ridiculous, dangerous and stupid charade. "Watson... I am sorry for deceiving you, but it had..."

"To Hell if it had to be done, Holmes! Ivanson nearly succeeded in killing you!" At the mentioning of the mad doctor, I saw Holmes gaze flicker to the man who lay in a pool of his own blood.

"But he did not, thanks to your punctual timing," he bit back and started to stand. The moment he set his weight on his right ankle, he gave a surprised cry of pain before collapsing. I quickly caught him before he could fall to the floor and gave him my support. "It seems I have procured a broken ankle alongside my memory loss, Watson."

I snorted derisively. "You're lucky that's all you managed to get here. God, Holmes, perhaps it is best you do not remember your stay here."

"How is that best, Doctor?" Lestrade spoke up at last. "I still have these two blokes to put on trial and without Holmes testimony as to what they and Doctor Ivanson had done here..."

"Charge them for attempted murder of myself, surely you have enough evidence for that despite the lack of my own testimony?" Holmes quickly interjected.

"And there is the journal and the medical files, Inspector," added I, "The journal alone can fill in the gaps where Holmes cannot." Lestrade seemed to be satisfied with our answers and nodded in reply before gesturing to Clarke to oversee the escorting of our prisoners.

"If you like, I can have one of my boys take you back to Baker Street," offered the ferret-faced officer.

"I think that would be best," Holmes said and his gaze side-glanced at me a bit concerned. I was still angry with him but I had to agree it would be best. There I could give him a complete dressing down for his stupidity and then determine precisely how much damage Ivanson did manage to inflict on my friend's mind.

Without further word from any of us, I helped Holmes out of Bedlam and half and hour later we were returned to our flat in Baker Street. Missus Hudson greeted us with a motherly concern and praised me for getting Holmes out of "that awful and dreadful place". Holmes was irritable by the time we had arrived and I figured it was borne from the fact that he could not recall what had happened to him. I would have found it equally as frustrating to not remember the last several days of my life and for Holmes it was probably beyond frustrating for him. He did not like not knowing things.

Once upstairs in our sitting room and I had Holmes stretched out on the settee, I had Missus Hudson retrieve a bowl of warm water and clean rags while I retrieved my gladstone bag. In silence I treated Holmes ankle and the burn marks on either side of his skull where the electricity had entered and then finally the burn mark where it had left his body before finally treating the cuts on his wrists.

"From the angle of those cuts, they are not self inflicted?" he asked of me and I knew what he was doing. He was testing his own ability to observe and deduce. The fact that he came to the right conclusion showed that he had retained some of it but a much larger test was going to be needed. For now, I told him that he needed to rest and recover from his ordeal. Although his mind may have forgotten, his body had not as evident when he groaned in misery upon repositioning himself on the settee.

"Holmes..." I began after I had put away my medical supplies and sat down in my armchair to watch him. He held up a hand to stop me from speaking any further.

"I know what you are going to say, old chap, and honestly I deserve every word of it," said he much to my surprise. He was not one to admit when he was wrong about something and when he did, they were rare occasions nonetheless. "However, from what I do remember of the case, it was well worth the risk to put an end to Ivanson's agenda. Countless lives were spared and his evil taint has been removed from Saint Bethlehem."

"Still you could have died there, Holmes," said I in protest at his attempt to justify his approach to the problem. "If only you could remember what had happened to you then you might not see this whole ordeal worth the risk you took."

"I take it you have seen me in a less than presentable state?" I nodded at his question and he looked a little disturbed at the idea that I had seen him not at his best. He was a proud man, that much I knew, and I knew he would have liked to have been spared of being seen anything but himself unless he was purposely portraying himself in such a manner. "Perhaps it is best that I do not know, Watson."

"You may know anyway. There is a chance that the memories could return," I warned him.

"Then when they do, I will deal with them at that time," said he and stretched an arm out to reach for the pipe that lay on the end table next to the settee. "But... unless my powers of observation have really left me, I think you have questions you would like answered?"

I chuckled a little at the humor I heard in his voice. He was taking his memory loss rather well and I wondered when he was behind the closed door of his bedroom if his reaction to the loss would be different. I could only imagine him reaching for that Moroccan case and drowning himself in that infernal drug of his in an attempt to cope and settle his wandering and imaginative mind away from what had happened to him.

"Yes, I do, Holmes," I answered him and relaxed more in my chair to better listen to his answers. "First off, I'd like to know how much of an act was your initial insanity at the docks?"

He chuckled in amusement and lit his pipe before answering me.

"The only insanity in that moment, my dear Boswell, was I thinking it to be a brilliant plan."

* * *

[1] Doctor H. R. Silvester described a method of CPR in the 19th century that became the precursor to modern CPR.

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_It is over at last! Ivanson is defeated, Holmes is rescued and Watson is the hero!_

_Lestrade: Hey what about me?_

_Me: Okay you're a hero too.  
_


	24. The Great Human Detective

_Inspired by http:// mimm. deviantart. Com/ art/ The-Great-Human-Detective-150658410 (Remove spaces)._

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**The Great Human Detective**

"I just _love_ your disguise!" said our nefarious captor as he ripped Holmes false mustache from his upper lip in what appeared to be in a quite painful method. However, my friend did not allow any discomfort to show as his disguise was ripped apart by the man whom he was busily glaring venomously at.

Professor Padraic Ratigan, a tall and muscular fellow with slick black hair, a clean shaven and angular face (that appeared more rat like to me than human), and dark gray eyes, stood before my friend with a mocking grin and holding the false piece of hair as if it was the most disgusting thing he has had the pleasure of seeing before tossing it aside. He was dressed in a gentleman's evening attire and an opera cape adorned his back to complete his appearance.

"Honestly, _Captain Basil_," he snickered, "did you really believe that you could waltz in here dressed like... _that_?" the man continued, his gaze flicking over my friend and then my own pirate attire (which I was quite self-conscious of) before returning those sinister eyes back to the detective. I could see my friend bristle a little at Ratigan's jabbing words. "I'm surprised you even bothered."

"Yes, well,... I do have a case to solve after all and a disguise _usually_ allows me to get into places Mister Sherlock Holmes cannot," retorted my friend between gritted teeth. I placed a hand on his shoulder and I felt him flinch a bit at the unexpected contact but relaxed a little once he realized it was only me. I knew Holmes needed to keep his temper and rein in his wit before it got us both killed, for all around us were several hired thugs that would gladly do harm to us if our captor so much as gave the word.

"True, true," Ratigan replied and turned to walk away from us, still wearing the air of superiority as all men are wont to do when they believe they have the upper hand. Knowing my friend, he had probably already figured out a way out of this situation and before Ratigan or anyone else realized it we would be long gone from this place. Possibly even after we've caused enough mayhem to place a mark on our heads. Ratigan struck me as a man who was quite willing to pay a hefty sum to the man who brought our heads back to him on a platter if we irritated him enough.

He sat down on a chair that sat beside a round table, which previously had hosted a game of poker to the three guards we had thought were just guarding the warehouse we had sneaked in to but in fact had only been a false ruse to give us the impression of overconfidence inside us. It had certainly worked as our current predicament showed.

"Now that I finally have you, Mister Holmes, what shall I do with you?" Ratigan continued.

"You could simply let us go?" my friend rhetorically suggested and the professor laughed in amusement at the suggestion.

"Let you go? No, no, no, that will not do, Mister Holmes," said he in reply and he steepled his fingers before his lips in a very similar fashion of my friend and I glowered at the disturbing gesture. "I think shooting you would be an injustice to a man of your stature. Nay, someone like you should go out with a _bang_. Do you not agree Doran?"

Nearby one of the thugs whom I now knew was Ratigan's second lieutenant, Captain James Doran, a former captain of Her Majesty's Army and who had served briefly in the Afghan War before being dishonorably discharged from service for extortion and whom Holmes considered to be a very dangerous man, nodded in agreement with his superior.

"Aye, sir," Doran said and smiled wickedly at us. I could feel the ring of thugs closing in around us even though they had not moved an inch. We were effectively trapped like two mice surrounded by cats... or more like two cats and an army of rats really. "They should be given front row seats to the new age we'll be bringing to England."

"A splendid idea, old friend," Ratigan grinned and rubbed his hands together before standing up. "Tell me, Mister Holmes, what do you say about seeing the world as you know it change right before your very eyes just as you die?"

Holmes merely glowered as the ring of criminals finally did constrict around us and we braced ourselves for the struggle that was to come. And just before the first punch was swung, he said loudly in reply, "Remember, remember the Fifth of November!"

* * *

_TBC perhaps?_

_I love GMD and I love the fact that someone drew Basil and Ratigan as humans even more! So this is my little tribute to both GMD and the drawing. :D_

_And I seem to have a fascination with Guy Fawkes Day, I do not know why. 0_o_


	25. The Great Human Detective II

_Continuation from the last... so I decided to continue it now that I have an idea as to what Ratigan is doing. Heh_

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**The Great Human Detective**

"The Fifth of November, Holmes?" I complained as the thug bound my hands painfully together behind my back causing me to wince. Our fight in the warehouse had been a short one the moment someone took advantage of my old war wounds and I had went down with a cry. Holmes, to give him credit, managed to bring down several of them before he was subdued with an immediate threat to my life. Remembering that moment made my cheeks flush with indignation and regret. If it had not been for my weakness, Holmes and I could have fought our way out of the warehouse.

"I felt that it was appropriate for what Ratigan had in mind for London," my companion muttered from behind me as the last of our binds were secured about us. We were tied together in two chairs, back to back, and sitting next to the device that would change our world as we knew it and remove any trace of our existence from the face of this Earth.

"Where are we exactly anyway?" I asked as I tested my bonds, but before Holmes could reply someone else answered for him. That someone being Professor Ratigan.

"You are presently underneath Buckingham Palace, Doctor Watson," said our nefarious companion at present. My expression must have been one of shock as the realization of what he was planning dawned on me for he smiled in delight that we understood his game.

"You're crazy!" I exclaimed. I should not have, though, for his temperament quickly changed from that of a cheery mood to an slowly enraging one. He reached for my shirt collar and if I had not been tied to the chair and Holmes, I would have surely been lifted out of my seat and into the air, so angry was he.

"Did you say... _crazy_?" he growled as he glowered menacingly at me. "**Never**. Call. Me. That. _**Word**_!"[1]

"No, he did not," soothed my companion behind me. "He merely means that you are eccentrically insane."

"Holmes, you are not helping," I groaned and Ratigan, seemingly pacified by his outburst and that I was actually quite terrified of what he might do, let go of my shirt collar and took a few steps back. He cleared his throat and dusted off the sleeves of his coat before looking at us.

"Yes, well... As I was _saying_," he continued and walked away from us toward the device nearby.

It was merely a simple contraption of barrels marked with various labels of food products ranging from apples to ale and explained how Ratigan was able to get them underneath the palace without arousing suspicion from the Royal Guard or the staff. The barrels, however, did not contain what they claimed to possess, for the wiring attached to them easily told that the contents were quite explosive. Sitting on top of the stack of barrels, however, was the most complicated part of the bomb, for the lack of a better word. It was a strange device of cogs and whirly-gigs with a spidery web of wiring feeding outward toward each of the barrels and a clock slowly ticking downward.

"You are underneath Buckingham Palace and if you strain your ears, you might just hear tonight's entertainment as the Queen entertains her Court and a few world-leaders currently attending the Grand Royal Ball." He smiled wickedly at us as he tapped the contraption attached to the barrels of explosives with one slim finger. "At eight o'clock sharp when everyone will be all together in the Ballroom, dancing and talking, this little device of mine will send an electrical current through the wires and into the barrels of gunpowder and creating the largest fireworks the Royal Family and all of London has ever seen. No more Royal Family and Prime Minister, as well as a few Lords and Ministers, but in addition, several European countries will suddenly find themselves headless."

"All for what, Ratigan?" Holmes inquired once the madman had finished.

"Why, money of course, Mister Holmes," he answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and then walked back over to us. "Britain will find Herself suddenly being threatened by several nations at once as they quickly move to lay blame upon Her shoulders. She will need revolutionary weapons and technology if She wishes to keep her Sovereignty on this soil. I can provide all of that for a hefty sum."

"Of course, a brilliant plan. War is always a profitable frontier," said my friend, feigning dejection as if he realized that Ratigan had won. "But I am curious, Ratigan, what is to keep Britain from turning you over to the wolves?" I knew what he was doing but Ratigan seemed to be blind to the fact. Holmes was fishing for information, using the man's own ego against him by praising his _brilliance_. Even if we did manage to stop his plan, we both knew that Ratigan would not be anywhere near here once the bomb went off. Where he would go, neither of us knew and Holmes, I knew, was trying to find that out.

"Quite simple, really, Mister Holmes," the tall rat-faced man replied airily. "While the world is trying to recover from such a dramatic loss in leadership and prepare for war, I will be half-way across the world basking in the profits this plan will have blessed me with and be long out of the reach of Europe's grip before they even realize the truth."

"Well then... it seems you have covered ever possible avenue of probable failure and capture, I must congratulate you, Ratigan," falsely praised the detective behind me. "I do hope that your retirement in the Caribbean will be an unpleasant one. If not, I'll personally see to it one way or another."

Ratigan laughed and smiled eerily pleasant at us. I craned my head around in time to see him arrogantly pat Holmes on the cheek and I knew my friend's expression darkened at the gesture. "Yes, I am certain you will come and haunt me in my sleep, Mister Holmes."

He laughed again before gesturing to his men to leave with him. Not another word was exchanged between us as the door slammed shut and was bolted on the outside, plunging us into darkness. Once the footfalls of Ratigan and his men had disappeared from our ears and the tick-tocking of the clock grew louder in the silence of the blackened chamber we were in, we both began struggling to get out of our binds.

"Holmes...?"

"Yes, Watson?" Holmes paused in his struggling for a moment to glance over his shoulder at me.

"I do hope you have a plan."

"As a matter of fact, I do," said he in reply. "Remember what I had said in the warehouse?"

"Yes, but what does remembering the Gunpowder Treason plot have to do with this, even though it is quite similar but different in location?" asked I and for a moment I thought I could slip my hand free of the rope cords binding us but all I received from it was a chaffing of my skin.

"Quite simply, my dear Watson," said he just before he gave a cry of triumph as one of his hands slipped free. "When will the common criminal ever learn how to properly tie a knot?"

"Holmes..."

"Right." As he quickly worked to untie the rest of the ropes binding us, he explained his plan to me. "We were not alone when we went to that warehouse, Watson. Although we originally intended to go there alone, we had picked up a very small tail along the way. One of my Irregulars followed us and had seen the entire exchange inside. By now he'll have gone to Lestrade and given him my last warning before we were subdued."

"That warning being?"

"Remember, remember the Fifth of November," repeated he as he finished untying me from the chair.

"But... that happened at Parliament," I argued while I rubbed circulation back into my wrists.

"Except Parliament is currently empty right now. The only important building left in London that is currently hosting several key members of our government and those of foreign nations is Buckingham Palace. Lestrade may fault in creativity here and there from time to time, but he does not lack intelligence. He will figure it out and realize that the Grand Royal Ball is Ratigan's target. Now, Watson, lets see if we can defuse this bomb."

"Only one problem, Holmes," said I.

"And what is that, old chap?"

"We have no light." My friend was silent for several long seconds and in that silence the clock continued to tick downward.

* * *

[1] This quote is taken directly from _Tale Spin_, another Disney cartoon show set in the world of _Jungle Book_. Don Karnage, a wolf pirate captain with a Spanish accent, often says "Did you say..._crazy_? **Never**. Say. That. Word!" whenever someone calls him crazy. Since Disney's Ratigan hates it when someone calls him a Rat and this Ratigan is human, I decided to make it so that he hates it when he's called "crazy" instead to keep him in character.

* * *

_Well well. Ratigan seems to have a thing for disposing of the Queen, doesn't he? His rat-self tried to take over the country, now his human-self has decided retiring in luxury from war profiteering his much more profitable in the end. At least it doesn't involve falling off of Big Ben, or so he thinks. ;)_


End file.
